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Water Champion Chat:
Chakena D. Perry

During last year’s Chicago Water Week in May 2024, MPC hosted A Vision for Water: Planning for Abundance and Scarcity in Illinois, convening leaders from across the region to build capacity and collaboration in the water sector. One of the water champions spearheading the conversation during our panel was Chakena D. Perry. As a Senior Policy Advocate  at Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), Chakena leads the Illinois drinking water portfolio with a focus on lead service line replacement, affordability initiatives, and workforce development. She previously worked as both a staffer and commissioner at Metropolitan Water Reclamation District (MWRD), Cook County’s wastewater and stormwater utility. 

Today, we’re checking back in with Chakena to see how her work has evolved since the event and learn more about water happenings through the lens of NRDC’s work. We also discuss what Chakena is considering with the upcoming change in federal administration.

Chakena D. Perry
Chakena D. Perry, Senior Policy Advocate at Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC)
For those who don’t know, can you tell us about who you are and what you do?  

I’m the Senior Policy Advocate for the Safe Water Initiative at NRDC, which is housed under our Environmental Health portfolio. I mostly focus on lead service line replacement, but I’m also working on PFAS reduction (MPC note: PFAS are per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, more commonly known as “forever chemicals”) and other emerging contaminants, in addition to trying to integrate affordability into all the work that we do. I’m also working with the City Colleges of Chicago and MWRD through the US Water Alliance’s Water Workforce Taskforce to address water workforce challenges. I have quite a few things on my plate, but it’s super fun, because I’m able to incorporate all my different passions and still be really engaged in the community at the same time. 

How has your background as a commissioner at a water utility influenced your current work? 

Serving as a staffer and a commissioner at MWRD prior to coming to NRDC, I was interested in ensuring that our water reclamation plants and our disinfection processes were running efficiently and effectively by supporting the necessary maintenance and material upgrades. I also ensured that community residents knew how to get involved with the agency and get in touch with the Commissioners on a variety of issues, particularly flooding. Flooding is one of the biggest issues that affects everyday residents and I wanted them to know they had a partner at the District to address their needs.   

With lead service line replacement, I enjoy helping residents understand the public health benefits of replacing lead pipes and explaining what the process actually entails so there are no surprises. Regardless of which side of the utility I’m on, there is a public engagement issue that needs to be addressed to make sure everyone has access to and reaps the benefits of the services provided.  

Are there any ideas that stuck with you from MPC’s Vision for Water event? 

In a breakout session, I spoke with someone about water reuse. I think all of us should be paying more attention to and investing more energy into innovation to address water scarcity through reuse. The public thinks that our access to water is infinite. But as we’re seeing on a regional level, there are municipalities that are running out of water, and others are noticing that water is becoming more expensive. They’re taking on debt to deliver this basic human right to individuals.  

Having that conversation in the breakout group really made me think about water reuse—whether it’s from an agricultural standpoint, our groundwater practices, or the way we run our wastewater facilities—how can we have a reuse mindset? This means not just telling residents to limit water usage, and to watch what you buy, which are both important, but how are we holding other players that use large amounts of water accountable and ensuring they are being good stewards of our natural resource. 

Has your work changed or evolved since then? Are there any new focuses coming into view for you in 2025?

Chicago has more lead service lines than any other U.S. city, and Illinois also has more than any other state. Our issue is vast and it’s going to require innovation, not just the replacement methods, but also the way we finance and fund this work, engage the public, and bolster our water workforce.  

Since the panel, I’ve since signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the City Colleges of Chicago, as well as MWRD. Over a two-year period, we’ll develop a program or enact a policy change that will help address a water workforce issue. Whether that’s an apprenticeship program or analyzing some policies at the water utility level to help aid in the recruitment and training of individuals, we’re still early in the process and currently figuring out exactly what we’re tackling.  

Are there connections that don’t tend to happen on a regular basis in the water sector that you want to build and maintain?

I don’t think we work with housing justice or housing policy individuals nearly enough. Lead service line replacement is so resident- and homeowner-centric, but housing advocates aren’t always centered in those conversations, which doesn’t make sense.  

Chicago is still trying to figure out how to do this well, so we have a lot of people that we can borrow best practices from. If we look at Newark for instance, they have a right-to-entry provision that they passed at the City Council level that allows individuals who live at a household to provide contractors with permission to replace their lead pipes. Landlords and property owners are often hard to get in touch with— sometimes they don’t even live in the city or state that they own the property in. What other things do we need to take into consideration? That’s why it’s important to have housing justice advocates at the table to expand our thinking. 

How do you think the upcoming federal administration change could impact state and local water issues? 

The incoming federal administration has already made it very clear that they are leaning on the side of deregulation and we should all be concerned. There are environmental regulations in place that are in place for a reason—to protect the health, safety, and wellbeing of residents, particularly in communities that are disproportionately impacted by environmental injustices. When you try to cut corners to “save money” or to expedite different processes, who gets harmed in the long run? It’s usually poor people and people of color. 

We just celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Safe Drinking Water Act. Although imperfect, it set us on track to federally regulate drinking. Ironically, around the 50th anniversary, the American Water Works Association (AWWA), one of the largest associations of water professionals in the country, filed a lawsuit to block the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s federal Lead and Copper Rule Improvements, which we call the LCRI. One aspect of the LCRI is requiring each city and state to remove their lead pipes within 10 years, with Chicago and a couple other cities being an exception. (Chicago gets around 20 years to replace our lead pipes.) The LCRI helps us address a wrong that has continued to plague communities for decades—the presence of lead pipes delivering contaminated water to homes.  

We already see that water utilities are starting to challenge the LCRI and we’re probably going to see conservative attorney generals across the country do the same thing. It’s disheartening considering there’s no safe level of lead exposure, and the millions of people that will continue to be harmed by lead in drinking water if their challenge is upheld.  

What’s your Vision for Water for Chicago and Illinois? 

My vision is for our elected officials and stakeholders to make water infrastructure a priority: something that we proactively engage with and not just reactively, something we continue to invest funding and expertise in on an annual basis to improve quality of life and create more harmonious communities. My vision is for residents to have water they can trust when they turn on the tap, that they can use with peace of mind that it’s not contaminated with lead and other contaminants that negatively impact their health. My vision is for water to be affordable. Right now, this basic human right of water is not available to every person in this state and the closer we can get to 100 percent of people having access to this basic human right, that’s a beautiful vision to have. 

This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity. 


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