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Environmental Progress - Spring 2000

National Watershed Award Goes To North Branch Chicago River Project

Only four such recognitions awarded nationwide each year

The CF Industries National Watershed Award has been presented to Friends of the Chicago River and its major partner, the Lake County Stormwater Management Commission, for their joint efforts on the North Branch Watershed Project. The project received U.S. EPA 319 funding through the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency.

In May 1999, the two groups received an award from the Illinois Chapter of the American Planning Association for their work on the same plan. That award recognized their successful efforts in working with numerous stakeholders to generate a creative planning process with the momentum for continued implementation.

Girl Scouts planting prairie plants at golf course.

Girl Scouts from Troop 426 at Wilmette planted prairie plants to create a buffer area at the edge of a pond at the Wilmette golf course as part of the award-winning project.

The groups have been working since 1994 on the North Branch Project, which involves all or parts of 18 communities with approximately 300,000 residents.

The more recent award is made by a partnership between CF Industries, the Conservation Fund, the National Geographic Society and U.S. EPA. It recognizes innovative, non-regulatory approaches to improved water quality planning with emphasis on local partnerships demonstrating successful economic incentives, voluntary initiatives and education. One corporation and three communities nationwide are awarded the recognition each year. Last year, 33 states were among the contenders. Corporate winner was Dow Chemical Co. for its Saginaw Bay Watershed Initiative Network. In addition to the Illinois groups, community winners were the Sun River Watershed Project in Montana, and the Rappahannock-Rapidan Watershed Partnerships that involved volunteers in an area reaching from the Blue Ridge Mountains to Chesapeake Bay.

Some of the Cook and Lake counties North Branch projects funded through cost-share 319 grants were highlighted in a 12-minute video produced by CF Industries and shown at the awards ceremony in Washington D.C. last November.