Environment

Across the country, drinking water is getting more expensive. Aging infrastructure, resource scarcity, pollution, population change, and a host of other factors all contribute to escalating water rates.

To encourage more communities to apply for a significant but underutilized state low-interest loan for water infrastructure financing, MPC has worked in partnership to recommend a number of reforms to the State Revolving Fund.

Chicago and most suburbs were built before modern stormwater management. Most of our stormwater flows off roofs and pavement into a combined sewer system that is not equipped to handle that much water at once. The overflow causes widespread urban flooding that hits lower-income and minority communities the hardest. Enter StormStore, a stormwater credit trading market for Cook County.

MPC works to prevent flooding, improve water quality and foster social, economic and environmental benefits within communities. We work with a range of stakeholders at the state, regional and local levels to build resilient communities by pairing strategic investment in green infrastructure nature-based solutions with essential grey infrastructure improvements.

The Chicago, Calumet, and Des Plaines rivers are three of our city’s greatest assets. Investments such as new boat houses and riverbank restoration are helping people in the Chicago region change the way they think of and experience our rivers. Our Great Rivers is a collaborative, comprehensive 30-year vision for the Chicago region's waterways. Together we are reconnecting communities and their rivers.

Clean, abundant drinking water is the backbone of any community. MPC works with partners and stakeholders across Northeastern Illinois to ensure appropriate investment, coordinated planning and 21st Century best practices for equitably managing our drinking water supply and systems.

Lead service lines pose serious health concerns not just to our region, but across the entire State of Illinois. Replacing them touches on persistent questions of equity. MPC and broad coalition of partners are pursuing new strategies to help communities tackle a critical statewide infrastructural issue.

MPC is advocating for policies, funding, and planning that advances development near transit—known as transit-oriented development, or TOD—for people of all incomes, in neighborhoods across the region. 

Calumet Stormwater Collaborative (CSC) is a diverse group of stakeholders working to improve coordination of knowledge, technology and financial resources to minimize the negative impacts of stormwater in the Calumet region.