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It might come as a surprise given our proximity to Lake Michigan, but Chicago’s neighbors southwest of the city could soon be facing a water shortage.
“We often think about Lake Michigan or about the Great Lakes as being an infinite supply of water when, in fact, it isn’t,” said Teresa Córdova, director of the Great Cities Institute at the University of Illinois-Chicago. “This is our source of drinking water here in this region. And yet, if we go just southwest of here, the Cambrian-Ordovician aquifer is beginning to collapse. It’s depleting, and this is a non-replenishable aquifer.”
The Cambrian-Ordovician aquifer supplies groundwater to communities in Will, Kane and DuPage counties.
This poses the challenge of managing and addressing a growing imbalance between flooding and water scarcity in the region’s water geography.
Córdova’s team at the Great Cities Institute has revealed a plan to recycle Chicago’s wastewater in order to prevent a future water shortage crisis.
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