Lake Calumet has long been a neglected and even abused part of the City of Chicago. Yet, it remains the largest body of water within the city limits and an area that hold promise for restoration from its days as a dumping ground for industry. The Southeast Environmental Task Force invited folks to come to the shores of this lake on Earth Day 2015 to look for birds and other wildlife and reflect on what has been and what might be for this once natural but now quite unnatural area.

Carol Niec and Kerrie Rosenthal are the founders and proprietors of The Seed Keeper Company, which was created to help gardeners organize, plant and store their seeds. Mike chats and jokes with them about the starting 2015 gardening season. Nancy Klehm explains how The Ground Rules will change urban soils and the way people think about them, as she promotes the Indiegogo campaign to get the concept up and running.

Karen Hudson is is an Illinois farmer and co-founder of Illinois Citizens for Clean Air and Water, She reports that that a hog factory farm has been proposed for Menard county, near the historic site of Abraham Lincoln's New Salem home. And she notes that the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency (IEPA) seems to be having a difficult time doing an inventory of CAFOs (Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations) in the state.