Bubbly Creek OK for rowing -- but don't fall in

BUBBLY CREEK | Inner-city boaters get new training site on once-stinky stream

The stinky stretch of the Chicago River known as Bubbly Creek may soon be known more for rowing than Stockyards pollution.

A City Council committee agreed today to lease 3 acres of city-owned land in Bridgeport — at $1 a year for the next 18 months — to the Chicago Training Center, a rowing group for 50 inner-city high school students funded by first lady Maggie Daley’s After School Matters program.

The riverfront land at 2804-72 S. Eleanor will be used for a dock, boat racks and storage. Over time, a year-round training center could be built on the parcel.

Participants now train at Lincoln Park Lagoon, which is only 1,000 meters long and a lengthy commute for South and West Side students. The shift to Bubbly Creek will make it easier for rowers to get to after-school practice and pave the way for participation to double — to 100 students and two dozen schools.

It comes just weeks after the city awarded a $1.3 million contract to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to help finance a three-year study to find ways to restore Bubbly Creek.

Even before the cleanup, rowers won’t have to wear clothespins on their noses to cut off the smell of animal waste dumped for decades by slaughterhouses at the old Union Stockyards, according to Patrick J. Slattery, treasurer of the Chicago Training Center.

“The water doesn’t smell,” Slattery said, though he added, “I don’t know that I’d dip a cup out of the creek and drink it.”

Executive Director Montana Butsch said “rarely do kids ever flip” while rowing. If they do, “Obviously, a shower would be their next, most important endeavor. But beyond that, we’ll give them safety lessons. They will be familiar with the river cleanup crews,” he said.

Arguing that rowing activity would “help expedite” cleanup of the South Fork of the South Branch of the Chicago River, Butsch said, “It’s a huge benefit. There’s less boating traffic on Bubbly Creek. Because of that, it’s very quiet, very secluded and very secure for the athletes and for the coaches to go up and down.”

Rowing is an elite and expensive sport normally out of reach for inner-city kids, many of whom have never been taught how to swim. An eight-person boat can cost up to $35,000.

At the Chicago Training Center, all expenses are paid. Not only do kids get in shape and learn structure and discipline. They travel four or five times a year to out-of-state competitions. They’re taken on college trips and put on a track to earn rowing scholarships.

“The goal is to provide access through the sport of rowing to college. It’s utilizing all of the benefits of the sport — physical and mental — to apply to their school activities and grades,” Butsch said.