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Hi, I'm Josh Ellis from Chicago's South Loop. I work for the Metropolitan Planning Council.
I direct our water resources programs,
and despite what you may have heard, the City of Chicago
and the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District and most of the suburban governments in Northeastern Illinois
are working hard to develop strategic plans for stormwater management
that integrate gray infrastructure, which is pipes and pumps and concrete—
that kind of stuff you see behind me—
with green infrastructure, which is vegetated systems to manage water a little more naturally.
These two things really have to work together. They need to be planned to work together,
and we need to invest in the green infrastructure in ways
that are prudent and makes sense to the specific problems at hand.
Some of the challenges that we have are that a lot of the rain that falls on us
falls on private property.
Some of it falls on the public right of way and is thus the issue of government,
but we need to solve it where it falls
in ways that make sense, and that means solve it on private property, solve it in the local sewer system,
solve it in the regional system, which means the city, MWRD
and suburban units of government need to work together on
these combined solutions.
The Metropolitan Planning Council is helping do that, helping facilitate that, helping
improve planning for these systems. And we need everyone to be a part.