By Gary Swick, President Remember Hilary Clinton’s 1996 book, “It Takes a Village,” and her 2016 Democratic National Convention speech reminding us that alone we can neither rear a healthy family, build a business, heal a community, or lift a country by ourselves? Collaboratively, we do better when we pool our skills, talents, perspectives, and … Read more
By Gary Mechanic, Executive Director Late last year one of the final pages of a decades long battle to save Long Lake (in Lake County Illinois) came to a close when Illinois’ Attorney General Lisa Madigan announced a settlement with Baxter Healthcare that will end that company’s decades-long pollution of Long Lake. Behind the Attorney … Read more
By Gary Mechanic, Executive Director Late last year one of the final pages of a decades long battle to save Long Lake (in Lake County Illinois) came to a close when Illinois’ Attorney General Lisa Madigan announced a settlement with Baxter Healthcare that will end that company’s decades-long pollution of Long Lake. Behind the Attorney … Read more
By Art Malm, P.E., FOFR Director Recently I was at Disney World with my granddaughters who told Pocahontas how much they loved her song “Just Around the River Bend”. “Do you live near a river bend?” Pocahontas asked. “No, we live in Elgin” Kayla replied. “Oh” said the Princess, “You live near the Fox River.” … Read more
By Gary Swick, President In December’s newsletter, I offered the Fox River’s holiday gift list. I also promised that I would suggest a few resolution ideas to help you to give the Fox River what it wants. The resolutions should be specific, achievable, relevant, measurable, and personal. We are all friends of the Fox River, … Read more
By FOFR Director Art Malm, P.E. Since I’ve received no dam questions this month I’ll take this opportunity to start a conversation about contamination of fish in Our Fox. As Joni Mitchell famously sang at Woodstock, and astrophysicists now explain, we are all stardust. Every element in our body, all the carbon, oxygen, phosphorous, calcium … Read more
By Gary Swick, President Many years ago I was given a wood carving from an anonymous source. The accompanying note read: “This is the River Spirit. It only speaks to children and a few select adults. You are one of those.“ So I was sitting by the Fox River wondering what it has on its … Read more
From time to time Friends of the Fox River receives questions thru our website or Facebook page about the river, pollution and other watershed related issues. Here’s a question we received that FOFR Director Art Malm researched and answers. J. Faust asks: Do you have an estimate of the volume the many water reclamation districts … Read more
By Arthur Malm It has been 100 years since the passage of Illinois’ Sanitary District Act of 1917. That Act allowed voters to petition for a referendum to form a sanitary district and build treatment plants to “conduce to the preservation of the public health, comfort and convenience”(1). Since that Act’s passage great strides have … Read more
by Gary Mechanic, Executive Director The Fox River has come a long way from the days when it was the most used and abused river in Illinois. An 1908 monograph describes the Fox River: “… the tributaries often bring large amounts of sediment, and various manufactories along the river discharge a large amount of refuse … Read more
