When the ribbon cutting for it happens next month, it will have been nearly three years since the ground work started on the Illinois and Michigan Canal rewatering in Ottawa. Former Mayor Bob Eschbach had worked on getting designs and funding for a long time before that.
There’s a half-mile section of canal in Ottawa going under Illinois 23 for recreational use. The challenges have been funding, supplying the water, and negotiating agreements with the Illinois Department of Natural Resources. The canal, relinquished partly to nature since it wasn’t used for shipping and transportation anymore, had to be reengineered to hold water again.