Good news -- the quality of water in the Illinois River has improved in one important aspect. A new study from the University of Illinois reports that nitrate load in the Illinois River from 2010 to 2014 was 10 percent less than the average load in the 1980s and early 1990s.

 

 

Reducing the nitrate and phosphorus loads in the Mississippi River by 45 percent is the US EPA's ultimate recommendation. This will serve to reduce the size of the seasonal hypoxic area, or "dead zone," created in the Gulf of Mexico when nitrate in tributaries like the Illinois River flows into the Mississippi River and down to the Gulf. Illinois has developed strategies to achieve these reductions described in the Illinois Nutrient Loss Reduction Strategy. Other Midwestern states have developed similar strategies.

 

"The recent reduction in nitrate load in the Illinois River is a promising sign," says Greg McIsaac, U of I researcher and lead author of the study. The study was completed last October, before data for 2015 were available. "Now that these data are available, we know that the Illinois River nitrate load from 2011 to 2015 was 15 percent lower than the load measured in the baseline period from 1980 to 1996. This 15 percent reduction is a milestone that the state hoped to achieve for all its rivers by 2025," he says.

 

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