By Elizabeth Brackett
Paddling down the Chicago River seems a long way off, but spring will eventually come and boaters will be back on the river. Just how clean is that river water? That’s what scientists at Argonne National Laboratory west of Chicago want to know…
… Cristina Negri has already begun utilizing maps for the Chicago area river system, or CAWS. CAWS includes the north branch of the river, the downtown main stem, the Calumet River, and the Sanitary and Ship Canal. Eventually, these maps will show all the hot spots where disease-causing bacteria exists and where it comes from.
‘When you think about sources, you have to think about different things. The first one is, is it coming from humans, is it coming from animals, from geese, from wherever it comes in the animal kingdom?” said Negri. “Who is the host for these organisms? But that is only part of the study. We also have to figure out where spatially it comes from, so if you take a map, we have to identify hot spots or areas that need intervention more than others.’…
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