Chicago River Swim is organized by Long Swim, a charity focused on raising funds for research on ALS. The swimming will be held on September 21st. It will be the first in the city in almost a century.
Chicago River Dyed Green: St. Patrick’s Day tradition continues
Chicago’s Journeyman plumbed a local Union 130 and poured 40 pounds of dye into the Chicago River, turning it into greenery.
Chicago – Every year, plumbers union dyes green. The Dave Matthews band dumped the once infamous 800 pound poop. And at least one section has become known for the bubbles produced by sludge toxic to the floor.
The Chicago River had a discontinued history as cities rose to major cities. But for the first time in almost a century, city officials are inviting swimmers to the first Chicago River Swim, a September 21 race aimed at raising funds for research on ALS.
Mayor Brandon Johnson, who swam in August, praised the upcoming events in a statement.
“The Chicago River Swimming is a huge victory for our city, and this is a testament to decades of efforts to revitalize the river,” Johnson said. “This event is about celebrating Chicago’s progress and a brighter, more inclusive future.”
According to a long swim to the race organizers, swimming is the first of its kind in 98 years. Approximately 400 swimmers, including the Olympian, compete in a one- or two-mile race that passes through the architectural icon from Marina City, a set of Corncob-shaped apartment buildings from the 1960s.
The race is organized by Long Swimming, a charity that raises funds for research on ALS by staging open water swims across the United States, including between Nantucket and Martha vineyards and between Molokai and Oahu, Hawaii. Doug McConnell, a native of the Chicago area, founded the organization in 2011. The 67-year-old lost both his father and sister to a neurodegenerative disease. His organization raised $2.5 million for ALS research.
McConnell, 67, said the Chicago River swimming has been running since 2011 and is inspired by a similar ALS swimming in Amsterdam’s canal, which has raised about $2 million from swimming alone in 2025. He hopes that Chicago’s swimming will be a similar marquee event.
“Chicago does big events very well, and we’re just going to get on that list,” McConnell said, naming other big charity races, such as the Amsterdam Swim and the Boston and Chicago marathons. “I think it’s a path to curing that terrible illness.”
The race comes after decades of effort to clean the rivers that have served generations as open sewers of industrial powers.
When the race begins, Chicago will be the newest major city to resume its waters. Other cities that have done so in recent years include Paris, which opened the Seine for the Olympics and left it open for recreational swimmers. Cincinnati has been holding the Great Ohioliver Swim since 2007. A 11-mile bridge is swimming in Portland, Oregon. The Long Swim held a 29-mile race around Manhattan Island in 2014.
Among the swimmers who compete in the Chicago swimming are Olivia Smoriga, a gold medalist in Rio de Janeiro in 2016, and Natalie Hins, a bronze medalist in the 2020 game in Tokyo.
The winner will win the trophy. The proceeds from the race are also directed towards teaching children in the Chicago area to swim, according to organizers.
Decisions on whether water is considered safe are based on measurements of contaminant concentrations, including E. coli and fecal.
Race organizers said they are conducting tests at eight different points along the race course. So far, all tests have been 200-600 CCE, a measure of bacterial levels, organizers said.
Less than 1,000 CCEs are considered safe, and between 1,000 and 10,000 CCEs are considered dangerous for immunodeficient swimmers. Additionally, more than 10,000 CCEs are considered unsafe.
Open sewerage
The arrival of the Chicago River reaches a point considered safe enough to swim, and is hoped for a complete transformation from the industrial past, or by the city leaders there.
When Chicago rose to “the world’s pork shop” from Lake Michigan’s Trapping Village, the river was essential to the local industry, as local poet Carl Sandberg put it in a 1914 poem.
But it also became a garbage dump. Upton Sinclair described the section of the “Jungle” known as Bubblee Creek as “a great open sewer.”
“The grease and chemicals poured there undergo all sorts of strange changes,” Sinclair writes. “It’s always moving, like a huge fish feeding it there or a great Leviathan abandoning itself at its depths.”
According to the race organizer, the river only temporarily served the purpose of the sport they want once again.
The Illinois Athletics Association has held swimming races in the river since 1908, attracting as many as 100,000 spectators, according to race organizers. However, by the late 1920s, industrial and human runoff had accumulated in the rivers, making it unsafe for swimming and the race was cancelled.
The river becomes a playground
Environmental experts are primarily praised the 1972 Clean Water Act for restoring the river by the mid-20th century.
The law, signed under President Richard Nixon, prevented businesses from dumping them in waterways.
Large-scale pollutants in the water have become extremely rare and have made the news.
In 2004, Dave Matthews Band made the headline after the tour bus dumped 800 pounds of poop on a tour boat under the Kinsey Street Bridge. The band agreed to pay $200,000 to resolve the lawsuit according to the case.
Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raul announced in May that his office had reached a $4.8 million settlement with Trump International Hotel Tower over a violation of Prairie’s water protection law. The settlement has arrived in response to a lawsuit over tower operators who ignore regulations regarding minimizing the impact of building cooling systems on aquatic living things. According to the Attorney General’s Office, the tower sits in the river and draws 20 million gallons of water every day for the cooling system.
Today, instead, the river has become something of a playground. Tour boats and gorgeous yachts are constantly cruising under the city’s bridge. A group of neon green kayaks hang near the riverbank. The walk along the river hosts bars and restaurants. Flowers bloom in riverbank gardens near the angle for fishermen to hook one of more than 70 species of fish in the water.
On St. Patrick’s Day, the Chicago Plumber Union dyes the river. The Illinois Environmental Protection Agency has analyzed the dye and concluded it was safe, according to the Sierra Club.
The river is contaminated after heavy rain due to street runoff and washing of city sewage systems. The race organizer said that if a water analysis finds high concentrations of contaminants, the race is ready to be cancelled.
Stoked, an Olympic swimmer in the Chicago area
Chicago area native Olivia Smoriga told USA Today she was shattered about water quality concerns.
“I’ve been swimming in the lake for the rest of my life, so I’m very excited about it,” said Smoriga, who grew up in Gilson Beach, north of Chicago. “I want to see any water and swim there.”
Smoriga won the gold medal in 2016 and the bronze medal in 2020. The 30-year-old also holds a record of most gold medals that won one Fina World Swimming Championship after winning eight gold at the 2018 World Championships. She said she is currently training for the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles.
However, the Olympian admitted that she was “a little nervous” about her upcoming swimming. She specializes in racing from 50 to 100 meters and swims for a mile. River Swim is just her second open water race.
“It’s a completely different beast for me,” Smogiga said. She added that whatever the terrifying fear of boredom you expect from a long open water swim, she doesn’t expect from a Chicago race. “It’s going to be crazy about the river, so many people, the views of downtown, I’ll definitely be psychologically entertained.”
How does swimming help ALS?
Just as organizers say they might see Olympic swimmers race in the shadows of Chicago’s iconic architecture, medical researchers say charity swimming is also crucial to the development of treatments.
According to HandeÖzdinler, director of scientific research at Long Swim and head of a northwestern university lab focused on upper motor neurons, the funds raised by the swimming focus on 46 medical research labs.
Özdinler, an associate professor of neurology at Chicago Regional University, said the government’s funding research process focuses on finding experimental labs that develop treatments too early.
“ALS is a very complex disease and cannot solve complex problems with very linear solutions,” Özdinler told USA Today. “We need to put together a variety of expertise, and that’s what I’m doing. We use this money to promote collaboration.”
Among the most notable partnerships she has been directed is the development of the new drug NU-9, developed in Northwestern by Richard Silverman, known to improve neuronal health and is thought to help treat neurodegenerative diseases such as ALS and Alzheimer’s disease.
The National Institute of Aging has awarded $7.3 million to the lab behind the drug for further research.
Ozdinler said long swimming efforts are essential for developing new drugs and other treatments, adding that he hopes that Chicago River swimming will turn into a major marquee event, such as Amsterdam swimming.
“I hope this will be the beginning of something amazing that will come and create momentum,” Özdinler said. “It’s very important to see ALS patients survive and move forward the field.”
