>> Jump in.

The water is fine.

Organizers say hundreds of swimmers will finally finally dive in for the Chicago River Swim this Sunday.

It'll be the first open water swimming event in the river in nearly 100 years.

The last one in 1927. event.

Organizers say they hope the race will wash away public perceptions of the river as being polluted while raising money for ALS research and youth swimming lessons.

Joining us now are Douglas McConnell, co-founder of a Long swim, a local charity that host open water swimming events to bring awareness and funding to ALS research.

Margaret Frisbie, executive director of Friends of the Chicago River and become professional swimmer who represented Team USA on the world stage.

4 times World Pool.

It will a participant in this weekend's race.

Welcome to all the thanks for joining us.

Thank Let's dive in Doug.

I did there near the main organizer of this event.

why a river swim?

>> Well, we were introduced to the idea several years ago when we were notified of a group that does a swim in the canals of Amsterdam.

And we got in touch with the race.

Organizers wonderful guys that have been so so helpful.

as we've been planning the river swam and boy, the more videos they sent us, the more it looked like the Chicago River so we started that was where the idea kind of came from.

And now 13 years later, we're going to be in the river.

>> It only took 13 years.

That's murder.

Last year's event raised $200,000 but had to move from the river to Lake Michigan because of water safety concerns.

What steps has your organization taken to ensure that the river is safe for swimming and obviously working with local agencies on that.

So friends of the Chicago River has been working since 1979 to improve water quality.

Make the river more accessible for people.

Also say for wildlife.

>> And it's really been a series of steps using the rules of the Clean Water Act working with government agencies and partners and making sure that the rivers cleaner that are we're investing in clean water, infrastructure and then making sure that there's public accessible to get into the river and get out of the river.

So we secured a swimming standard for the Chicago River in 2011.

And we've been advocating on behalf of swimmers like Duggan back out to get people on the water ever since.

>> Talk about the river's history and why it was an slow double for so long.

A lot of folks know about Bubbly Creek, which is a South fork of the South branch of the Chicago River.

Yes, that's right.

Brain to swell.

You know, Chicago is really no different than cities all around the world.

Cities were built on rivers.

And as we were developing in growing, we put our waste in our rivers.

And so this is common place all around the entire planet.

Chicago was unique in that we actually reversed our river and connected it to Des Plaines to the Mississippi and the Gulf of Mexico to clean up their lake from our drinking water.

And so we actually designed our river into the sewer system, which is partly why we've had a cultural battle to rethink how we view our river because it took a long time to disabuse people of the fact that it is part of the sewer system.

At this point.

The river is really dramatically cleaner and we know it because we're testing the water quality.

We can measure it in space is a fish which are, you know, they they exist.

If there's a pollution, we've got river otters, turtles, muskrat, all evidence of healthy river.

Back you.

One last year's women's 2 mile distance described like what that was like for you and how you're feeling heading into Sunday.

It was amazing.

I love the Chicago River Summit, such a greater organization because there is money for Allison.

Also teach young kids how to swim, which.

>> It's something that's so important.

Not just because swimming brings so much community to people, but it's a life-saving skill.

So I'm really excited.

from Chicago and the river is one of my favorite staples of the city.

Like I just remember as a kid, you know, going on a boat down the river are watching the river get died on Saint Patrick's Day.

And I'm so excited this woman at because it's it means so much to me.

And it means so much to this whole community to the whole community of swimming in Chicago.

I think it's gonna be a relief and race and just a very meaningful experiences.

Well, you'll also get a view of the city from position that people rarely get.

It's usually on a boat if you're in the river, right?

But for your body to be in the river and looking up at the city going to be very different experience.

surrounded by by the city.

Yes, absolutely.

Very literally.

>> Doug.

The swim is also personal for you with talked about the fundraising part for ALS as well as for youth swimming on.

Tell us how you Trump tied the 2 together.

>> ALS is a disease that hit my family pretty hard.

lost my father Dale last.

And and then one of my sisters was diagnosed and it was really after Ellen was diagnosed that we wanted to do something at having a having a fatal disease and makes you feel powerless and we wanted to feel less powerless.

So I had been a swimmer.

In fact, I started swimming because I was following in her food footsteps did so well certain brain storm led to another.

She came up with the name of a long swim to match the acronym of a And we've had the good fortune of raising 2 and a half million dollars for the med school over at Northwestern and man, Oh, man, the progress they're making.

All right.

All of it sorry to hear about your loss of both you and your father and your sister.

And it's amazing.

You turned it into this.

>> So that most competitive swimming wait races.

They happen mostly in an indoor pool.

And this race, though, it's going to start near the Dearborn Street Bridge and it's going to loop through much of downtown talk a little bit about the differences in swimming between the difference between swimming in open water and trouble.

Yeah.

So I'm both an open water in the pool summer.

>> And I much prefer open water.

I think that there's a sense of adventure to it because you never quite know exactly what you're going to get.

You could get different weather, different variables, people you can your competitors could be in your way because you're trying to you're both trying to get to the most direct route that runs the next Bowie and it just adds a whole other element of adventure and that really appeals to my spirit.

yeah, I'm just really looking forward to it.

And I really want more people to try open water, too, because if you don't like sitting in a pool because you think it's monotonous, you know, like staring at that black line, open water might be the way to go and might be.

The thing for you to do is training for much different, not much different of open water is an endurance sport because the thing about just the 10 K so the only thing that's different it in training in terms of training is, you know, the amount of garbage are doing in the amount of a swimming you have to do in order to be a real quickly fit to complete the 10 K you don't have to back flips at the end of the you don't get that murder.

You've been with friends, the Chicago River for 25 years.

And you've long said that swimmable cities are livable cities.

>> We talked about it.

The river kind of gets a bad rap.

But you see people actually been swimming in the river for a little while, just not getting a permit for it.

>> How important is an event like this?

The kind of establishes a new reputation for the city?

I think it's really key because I think as I said earlier, culturally, we haven't really accepted the river as a recreational resource if you go downtown in the meantime where they're going to be swimming on Sunday, you could practically usually walk across it on kayaks 20 years ago, even 15 years ago.

That wasn't the case.

So we have dramatically changed this river and it's just entirely a different place.

>> And so what we feel like is that if you the whole, you know, the whole world is going to be looking Chicago on Sunday because of this event.

And we have a beautiful city that is a magical place.

And when you see people in the water, you recognize that safe and you recognize that there's an opportunity that this could be happening every Sunday all year round and kids in cities need to have recreation like this.

We know from the climate crisis, people need of doors places to go that are safe and cool and so investing in our river this way and let light shine on it this way is just so exciting 30 seconds left.

The last one happened in 1927.

Hasn't happened since because of the water quality last year.

It was moved to the lake for What's your plan for the future of the Chicago River swim in about 20 seconds?

Well, >> Chicago does big events really well.

And we are hoping that the Chicago River swim can be annual victory lap over the hard work of not only the city of Chicago, friends of the river, other nonprofits and so forth, we'd like to be one of those big events.

Ok,