Stories by Patty Wetli

Dyeing the Chicago River green on St. Patrick’s Day has been a tradition since the 1960s. But in 2020 and 2021, rogues extended the practice to a section of the North Branch, a bridge too far for environmentalists.

The weekend will kick off with subzero wind chills Friday night into Saturday morning, before milder temperatures move in Sunday, forecasters said.

Skunk cabbage is one of the first native plants to emerge from the frozen winter ground in the Chicago area. Its powerful aroma isn’t the only quirky thing about this plant.

Preservation Chicago has announced its annual list of most endangered buildings and landscapes, representing pieces of the city’s history most threatened with imminent erasure.

DuSable Park has been a park in name only since Mayor Harold Washington dedicated the site, at the confluence of the Chicago River and Lake Michigan, in 1987. Wednesday, a design team was selected to bring the vision to life.

The Chicago Bears are teaming up with the Lake County Forest Preserves to remove invasive buckthorn from the property surrounding Halas Hall in Lake Forest.

Back in the 1980s, the number of fish species found in the Chicago River could be counted on a single hand. Today, that number is up to 60 species, an increase in diversity that can be directly attributed to a decrease in wastewater pollutants, according to a new study from the Shedd Aquarium.

A powerful line of thunderstorms ripped through the Chicago region Saturday night, with wind gusts topping 80 miles per hour. The wild weather continues Sunday with winter mounting a comeback.

Cook County’s forest preserves are much loved for their picnic groves and trails. Not as well known: The forest preserve district’s role as a research hub and early warning system of sorts against zoonotic diseases.

Get ready to experience spring, a brief dalliance with summer, and then a return to winter – all in the coming weekend.

As problematic as invasive plants, pests and pathogens already are, climate change will only magnify the havoc they wreak on habitat, wildlife and even humans.

A bit of space junk is hurtling toward the moon at 5,800 miles per hour, with impact set for Friday morning.

A rare patch of 8,000-year-old remnant Illinois prairie has been granted a new three-month lease on life, as the Greater Rockford Airport Authority has again delayed demolition of the natural area, pending additional environmental review.

Aleksandra Plewa and Peter Proctor's startup, EcoShip, collects used shipping materials and redistributes them to small business owners – for free. 

Though the Save Bell Bowl Prairie coalition earned a temporary reprieve for the natural area through March 1, the group remains at a stalemate with the Greater Rockford Airport Authority.

As enchanting as Lake Michigan's ice may appear, it’s unmistakably dangerous, as evidenced this week by the presumed drowning of an Indianapolis man who fell into the water off shelf ice at Indiana Dunes National Park on Monday.

Carvana’s 14-story glass tower will be a blight on Skokie, said residents, whose frustration boiled over at Tuesday night's meeting of the village’s Board of Trustees, where the project received final approval.  

The Urban River Otter Research Project recently launched in Cook County. One of the early goals is to gather otter sightings from the public in order to get a sense of the extent of the animal’s presence in and around Chicago.

The Chicago Park District’s state-of-the art track and field center at Gately Park in Pullman, which opened in 2021, owes its existence to decades of pushing and prodding by the late Conrad Worrill. Now it’s named for him.

An expected snow-making weather system took a swing south, downgrading anticipated accumulation in the Chicago area, according to the National Weather Service. The evening commute could still be messy.

Meteorologists have a clearer picture of the timing of Thursday’s winter storm, and it looks likely to snarl both the morning and evening commutes, especially in Chicago.

The Chicago Park District board of commissioners has elected Myetie Hamilton, a member of the board since September 2021, as the body’s new president, filling a vacancy left by the resignation of Avis LaVelle, who stepped down in November.

Temperatures could top 50 degrees in the Chicago area on Wednesday but the brief warmup will be accompanied by heavy rains, with a potential for flooding, followed by colder air and a wintry mix that could drop 7 inches of snow.

Green space advocates are in agreement that the north star of a new working group tasked to "reimagine" the Museum Campus needs to be the Lakefront Protection Ordinance. In short: No new building construction.

The eagle was released back into the Cook County preserve where it was found New Year’s Day, bleeding profusely. The raptor quickly reunited with its mate after more than a month apart.

The concessions are being written into an ordinance, which will come up for a second reading and final approval at a subsequent board meeting, possibly as early as Feb. 22. Failure to comply could lead to fines or even the suspension of Carvana’s business license.