MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
Cities around the world have worked for decades to clean their polluted rivers. On Sunday, those efforts paid off in the Windy City. Hundreds of swimmers took a plunge in the Chicago River. It was the result of collaboration between environmental groups and city officials. From member station WBEZ, Somer Van Benton reports.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: Wave 1 of our juvenile swimmers, come up (ph) in the water.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: Dave (ph) will tell you to go. OK? Keep (inaudible). No diving.
SOMER VAN BENTON, BYLINE: The skies in Chicago were clear for the river race, and there were crowds of people leaning over the river's bridges to make sure they got a good look. More than 250 swimmers lined up along the riverbank, surrounded by the city skyscrapers. Chicagoan Steve Greenspan was one of the swimmers ready to dive in.
STEVE GREENSPAN: It is just an unbelievable - feeling a little bit nervous. I'm not the strongest swimmer in the world, but I'm just looking forward to jumping in the water, looking up at the buildings. I just - what a wonderful experience.
VAN BENTON: He wasn't the only one anticipating the moment. One of the organizers, Doug McDonnell (ph), cofounded A Long Swim partly to show the world that Chicago's river, long considered a polluted mess, is once again swimmable.
DOUG MCCONNELL: It's just unbelievable. Seeing swimmers in there, it's just a dream come true.
VAN BENTON: The river swim had been in the works for almost 10 years.
MCCONNELL: The river is clean. There are ways to measure it and prove that. We're taking advantage of it and really celebrating that.
VAN BENTON: Celebrating because the last time there had been a sanctioned swimming race in the Chicago River was 1927. The city performed an engineering feat at the turn of the 20th century to protect Chicago's drinking water, reversing the flow of the river and sending its polluted water downstream. And over the years, the river became a dumping ground for waste. It was so polluted, at one point it reeked - smelling like rotten eggs and sulfur. That's changed, says Margaret Frisbie, with Friends of the Chicago River. The organization works to protect and revitalize the river.
MARGARET FRISBIE: The way that people think about the river is that when it rains, we get sewage in the river. That's not really true anymore.
VAN BENTON: And now the river has become a tourist attraction, and it's also a home to more wildlife. Bridget Coughlin from Chicago's Shedd Aquarium says there are now otters, ducks and nearly 24 species of fish in the Chicago River.
BRIDGET COUGHLIN: Some of these new species that we've seen return are ones that are known to be very sensitive to various pollutants. And so to see them really is a sign of hope and a sign of water quality and how humans and nature can coexist.
VAN BENTON: According to Bridget and researchers, the river is well within the U.S.' Environmental Protection Agency swim standards, so she had no worries about making history by bringing back a Chicago River race after 98 years.
COUGHLIN: Chicago is a swimmable city, and it is part of a really precious resource that we have to be mindful of. And what better way to connect with water than to swim in it?
VAN BENTON: Becca Mann was the overall first place winner, swimming two miles in 40 minutes and 7 seconds.
BECCA MANN: It was a fantastic race. Water was very clear, much clearer than a lot of the water that I swam in before.
VAN BENTON: Ninety-eight years ago, the person who won was Olympic marathon swimmer Johnny Weissmuller, better known as the man who played Tarzan in the 1930s and beyond.
MANN: Great footsteps to be following in (laughter). I'm the next Tarzan (laughter). Cast me.
VAN BENTON: Hopefully, the casting director hears her out, but the star of this race was the Chicago River, with a big environmental win.
For NPR News, I'm Somer Van Benton in Chicago.
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