Skokie Vision 14

Skokie Vision #14: This post-it vision seems like an outlier, doesn't it? The person didn't use a verb and maybe didn't need one. We get it. That wastewater treatment plant smell is as nasty as its 1928 headquarters at the intersection of Howard & McCormick is handsome. I did some quick research on what is officially the Terrence J. O’Brien Water Reclamation Plant, 14 buildings on 97 acres.

Skokie turns out to be the regional cleanliness hero. "[T]he O’Brien WRP originally treated sewage for a population of 800,000 within a 78-square-mile area, but now both the service area and the population are nearly twice as large. The O’Brien WRP currently serves over 1.3 million people in an area of 143 square miles and cleans an average of 230 million gallons of wastewater per day (mgd) and has the capacity to treat 450 mgd."

Knowing that Skokie is at the center of cleaning our shared water and even taking pride in it doesn't mean we have to love the smell. But it does make us humble. Skokie is part of an environmentally, politically, and economically interconnected Chicago region. Our Village leaders have to consider the needs of our own residents within a "network of mutuality," to use Dr. King's phrase. Wastewater treatment is but one example of this reality.

By the way, the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District hosts 2-hour tours at the plan on Tuesdays at 9. How cool! I will go. I don't know what we can do about the smell, but we can ask understand what it is, make sure it's not toxic, and build a relationship with our MWRD.