Draining Chicago by Richard Lanyon

Contributed and published by Lake Claremont Press:

Draining Chicago is the second in a four-book series on Chicago's public waterworks history by retired executive director of the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District, Richard Lanyon. The first in the series Building the Canal to Save Chicago (2012) was winner of the 2013 Abel Wolman Award for Best New Book in Public Works History (American Public Works Association, Chicago Metro Chapter).

Complimented by original photos, this book details the drainage history in Chicago by first describing intricate sewers system in the city between 1855-1900. Areas of the city include the north, west and south district including the Illinois & Michigan Canal as well the North Channel. The book discusses the building of sewers and stormwater management with final thoughts about the future of Chicago water reclamation.

Draining Chicago has recently been received two book awards: First place in Regional Nonfiction-Midwest from the National Indie Excellence Awards and a finalist in Regional Nonfiction from the Next Generation Indie Book Awards, 2017. Other awards that have recognized Lanyon's career contributions: American Society of Civil Engineer’s National Government Civil Engineer of the Year Award in 1999, Distinguished Alumnus of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2003, Edward J. Cleary Award from the American Academy of Environmental Engineers and Scientists in 2011, and Distinguished Service Award from the National Association of Clean Water Agencies (NACWA) in 2011. Lanyon is a past president of the Illinois Section of the American Society of Civil Engineers and holds Bachelors and Masters of Civil Engineering degrees from UIUC. In 2013, he was inducted into the NACWA (National Association of Clean Water Agencies) Hall of Fame.

Richard "Dick" Lanyon has had a life-long association with the waterways in and around Chicago. He grew up along the North Branch, attended the University of Illinois Navy Pier campus, worked as a beginning engineer on the Lake Diversion legal controversy, and capped his working life with a 48-year run with the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District. Lanyon retired as executive director of the MWRD in 2010, a position he held for 4.5 years. As Executive Director, Dick directed the day-to-day operations of the MWRD, which included 2,100 employees serving five million people in Cook County and the industrial equivalent of another four million people.

Lanyon has been involved in a variety of technical activities for the above and other organizations, and he has served in a number of leadership roles on environmental protection and water resource management matters for federal, state, and local agencies and organizations. Dick served on the Evanston Public Library Board of Directors and as alderman of the 8th Ward on the Evanston City Council. He is currently the Chairman of the Evanston Utilities Commission.

He enjoys biking along the waterways and Lake Michigan, and through the neighborhoods of his hometown Evanston, Illinois, where he lives with his wife, Marsha Richman.

One of Dick’s voluntary retirement projects is creating a catalog of the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District’s archive of 14,000 glass-plate negatives documenting District construction activities over the period 1894 through 1930. The archive brings alive the early work of the District and landscapes of the growing metropolis.

In his first book Building the Canal to Save Chicago, Dick used 180 of these photos and 183 are used in the current book. In The Lost Panoramas, by Richard Cahan and Michael Williams, 200 of these photographs were used by the authors with Dick’s assistance in identification and explanation.

Dick provides advice and guidance to anyone with questions about water in the Chicago area and the history of the District and its photographic archive.