98 Clean Air Act of 1963 and the Clean Water Act of 1972. However in 1999, American Rivers named the Fox River one of the most endangered rivers in America.13 Very few clean-up efforts were made after the CWA was put in place, and many companies were not compliant with the law. The Gem Cleaners in McHenry Illinois were one such company that illegally dumped their chemicals. The dry-cleaning company would dump their solvents contaminating the groundwater. These compounds were not discovered until 2007 when the location was enrolled in the Illinois EPA clean-up program.14 Two people’s wells were contaminated with the solvent and five people’s wells had a product of the breakdown of the solvent. Another two wells in the area had gasoline related contamination, most likely because the location also served an auto mechanic shop after the Gem Cleaners.15 Beyond contamination, clean-up efforts were few and far between until the early 2000s. In the early 2000s the Illinois EPA introduced the SCALE program.16 SCALE is a program that gives out grants to local clean up groups. In 2005 forty-five groups with other 11,000 participants went out to clean up garbage. 500 tons of garbage across 800 miles of stream banks of Illinois rivers were removed.17 Many challenges with restoring the river still remain, one of the biggest challenges are the dams. Currently, there are fifteen dams on the Fox River. Twelve of these are remnants of the gristmills and old power sources. Like the coal gas company, these low head dams were rendered obsolete with advancing technologies. Unlike the coal gas company, these dams were not removed. The dams are utilized now for recreational boating and water sports.18 Calls for removal of the dams 13 Gary Mechanic, “Love Our River Days,” Friends of the Fox River, May 17, 2018, https://friendsofthefoxriver.org/2018/03/03/love-river-days/. 14 “Fact Sheet 2,” Illinois.gov, September 2007, https://www2.illinois.gov/epa/topics/community-relations/sites/gemcleaners/Pages/fact-sheet-2.aspx. 15 IBID 16“Illinois EPA Supports Local Efforts to Clean up Illinois Streams and Lakes with ‘SCALE’ Program,” Illinois.gov, May 2009, https://www.illinois.gov/news/press-release.4705.html. 17 IBID 18 “River Restoration,” Fox River Study Group, 2022, https://www.foxriverstudygroup.org/river-restoration.
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