The Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago (District) is an independent government and taxing body encompassing approximately 91 percent of the land area and 98 percent of the assessed valuation of Cook County, Illinois.

The District is a separate legal entity sharing an overlapping tax base with the City of Chicago, the Chicago Board of Education, the County of Cook, the Cook County Forest Preserve District, the Chicago Park District, the Chicago Public Building Commission, the Cook County Community College District, and various municipalities and school districts outside the City of Chicago but within the District’s boundaries.

The District was originally organized as the Sanitary District of Chicago in 1889 under an act of the Illinois General Assembly which has been modified from time to time to increase the District’s authority and jurisdiction. The enabling act in 1889 was in direct response to a long standing problem with contamination of the water supply and nuisance conditions of the rivers. The District reversed the flow of the Chicago and Calumet River Systems to stop the discharge of sewage to Lake Michigan and instead, discharge it to the Des Plaines River, where it could be diluted as it flowed into the Illinois River and eventually the Mississippi River. Prior to the District’s construction of a 61.3 mile system of canals and waterway improvements, the Chicago and Calumet River Systems were tributaries to Lake Michigan. These river systems are now tributaries to the Illinois River system.

From 1955 through 1988, the District was called The Metropolitan Sanitary District of Greater Chicago. In order to provide a more accurate perception of the District’s current functions and responsibilities, the name was changed effective, January 1, 1989, to the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago.

Mission and Responsibilities

The mission of the District is to protect the health and safety of the public in its service area, protect the quality of the water supply source (Lake Michigan), improve the quality of water in watercourses in its service area, protect businesses and homes from flood damages, and manage water as a vital resource for its service area. The District collects wastewater from municipalities in its service area, conveys it to wastewater reclamation plants, provides full secondary treatment, and discharges clean water to local waterways. The District is also responsible for stormwater management for all of Cook County, including areas outside of the District’s corporate boundaries for wastewater services.

Services

The District’s seven modern water reclamation plants provide excellent treatment for residential and industrial wastewater, meeting permitted discharge limits virtually at all times. The treatment process is protected by a pretreatment program to guard against hazardous substances and toxic chemicals. These are strictly regulated pursuant to federal and state requirements. The District routinely monitors industries and non-residential sources to assure that wastes are disposed of in an environmentally responsible and lawful manner. Treated wastewater, along with runoff from rainfall, enters local canals, rivers, and streams that serve as headwaters of the Illinois River system. Stormwater in the separate sewered area is controlled to reduce flood damages by a number of stormwater detention reservoirs. In the combined sewer area, the District’s Tunnel and Reservoir Plan (TARP) has significantly reduced basement backup and overflows to local waterways. Flow within the District’s waterway system and the Lake Michigan discretionary diversion flow are controlled by three inlet structures on Lake Michigan: the Wilmette Pumping Station, the Chicago River Controlling Works, and the O’Brien Lock and Dam. The single outlet control structure is the Lockport Lock and Powerhouse. While exercising no direct control over wastewater collection systems owned and maintained by cities, villages, sewer districts, and utilities, the District does control municipal sewer construction by permits outside the City of Chicago. It also owns a network of intercepting sewers to convey wastewater from the local collection systems to the water reclamation plants.

Facilities

The District is located primarily within the boundaries of Cook County, Illinois. The District serves an area of 883.4 square miles which includes the City of Chicago and 128 surrounding suburban communities. The District serves an equivalent population of 10.35 million people; 5.25 million real people, a commercial and industrial equivalent of 4.5 million people, and a combined sewer overflow equivalent of 0.6 million people. The District’s 560 miles of intercepting sewers and force mains range in size from 6 inches to 27 feet in diameter, and are fed by approximately 10,000 local sewer system connections. The TARP is one of the country’s largest public works projects for pollution and flood control. Four tunnel systems total 109.4 miles of tunnels, 8 to 33 feet in diameter and 150 to 300 feet underground. The tunnels are planned to empty into three large reservoirs to provide storage for the polluted water captured by TARP.

The District owns and operates one of the world’s largest water reclamation plants, in addition to six other plants and 22 pumping stations. The District’s main office building is located at 100 E. Erie Street in Chicago, with an annex building located across the street. The District treats an average of 1.3 billion gallons of wastewater each day. The District’s total wastewater treatment capacity is over 2.0 billion gallons per day. The District controls 76.1 miles of navigable waterways, which are part of the inland waterway system connecting the Great Lakes with the Gulf of Mexico. It also owns and operates 34 stormwater detention reservoirs to provide regional stormwater flood damage reduction. In conjunction with its biosolids beneficial utilization of farm land application program, the District recycles all of its biosolids through land application in northeast Illinois, and owns over 13,500 acres of land in Fulton County, Illinois, formerly used for biosolids application.

Governance

The District is governed by a nine-member Board of Commissioners (Board). Commissioners are elected at large and serve on a salaried basis. Three Commissioners are elected every two years for six-year terms. Biannually, the Board elects from its membership a President, Vice President, and Chairman of the Committee on Finance.

Organization Structure

The Executive Director, who reports directly to the Board, manages the District’s day-to-day operations. Eight appointed department heads (Monitoring and Research, Procurement and Materials Management, Human Resources, Information Technology, Law, Finance, Engineering and Maintenance and Operations) report to the Executive Director. The Treasurer of the District, its chief financial officer, is appointed by and reports directly to the Board. General Administration, which includes the Administrative Services Division, Diversity Section, and Public Affairs Section are direct staff and support units, reporting to the Executive Director. The District employs approximately 2,000 people.

Budget documents can be found at the link.

Civil Service Board

The Civil Service Board is an administrative body appointed by the Board of Commissioners. The purpose of the Civil Service Board is to hear charges that are brought against employees, hear employee appeals of actions taken by the Director of Human Resources, and to approve changes to the Personnel Rules and the job classification plan. Actions of the Civil Service Board are subject to Administrative Review, as defined in the Code of Civil Procedure. Mr. John S. Kendall is Chairman of the Civil Service Board; Ms. Mazie A. Harris is Vice-Chairman and Mr. Donald J. Storino is Secretary.

Ethics Commission

Article 20 of the Ethics Ordinance establishes an Ethics Commission consisting of three members appointed by the Executive Director, with the advice and consent of the Board of Commissioners. The Ethics Commission is responsible for accepting complaints under the District’s Ethics Ordinance, which regulates political activities and the solicitation and acceptance of gifts by MWRD officers and employees. The powers of the Ethics Commission may include, but are not limited to: investigation, conducting hearings and deliberations, issuing recommendations for disciplinary actions, and imposing fines. Note that the Ethics Commission shall, however, act only upon the receipt of a written complaint alleging a violation of the Ethics Ordinance and not upon its own prerogative. The Ethics Commission members are Zelda B. Harris, Jose A. Lopez, and Michael J. Weicher.