Clean water: Chicago takes a leap

[mopinko]

Over the years, the commissioners who run the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago have made strides, often under regulatory or court pressure, to clean up the Chicago River and other area waterways.

Wednesday is a significant day in this vital effort. That's when the district launches a new $31 million facility built by Vancouver, Canada-based Ostara Nutrient Recovery Technologies. The aim: To scrub and recycle phosphorus from billions of gallons of wastewater that flows through the Stickney Water Reclamation Plant in Cicero.

Here's how it will work: Concentrated pollutants from treated water will be diverted into 43-foot-high stainless steel vats, called reactors, where phosphorus is recovered through a chemical process that adds magnesium to the water, extracting the phosphorus and nitrogen. That phosphorus and nitrogen then grow into small granules or pearl-like "prills," ready to be sold as an environmentally friendly commercial fertilizer component.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/editorials/ct-chicago-river-water-ostara-mwrd-stickney-phosphorous-edit-md-20160524-story.html


mwrd has been a very progressive group for a long time, and not that self-dealing, considering this is chi. over the last few cycles the board has become more and more female, and more progressive. i have supported several of those women in their campaigns, and couldnt be more proud.
sometimes those down ticket races are the most important.