MWRD Commissioner Debra Shore To Lead Chicago EPA Office

EVANSTON, IL — A three-term Metropolitan Water Reclamation District commissioner and North Shore resident is set to lead the Chicago office of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Debra Shore is expected to be appointed to lead EPA Region 5, a six-state region encompassing Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, Wisconsin and the territories of 35 tribes, according to multiple reports.

Shore, 69, of Evanston, was first elected to the MWRD board in 2006, winning re-election in 2012 and 2018.

According to Politico, which first reported the pending appointment, Sen. Dick Durbin had been lobbying President Joe Biden's administration to select Shore, although EPA Administrator Michael Regan had recommended another candidate — Micah Ragland, a former Obama administration official who has experience in the Flint water crisis and would have been the region's first Black chief.

Earlier this year, Ragland was also endorsed by the union representing the regional office and a group of more than 50 employees of color at the Region 5 office, the Chicago Sun-Times reported.

According to a campaign biography, Shore moved back to her native Chicago in 1982 and worked for the Better Government Association before launching Chicago Wilderness Magazine in 1997. That year, she was appointed to former Cook County Board President John Stroger's Community Advisory Council on Land Management, on which she served for 10 years.

In 1998, she helped found Friends of the Forest Preserves and began volunteering on political campaigns to elect more progressive candidates as Cook County commissioner, according to the biography.

Shore has also been active as board president of Wilmette's Congregation Sukkat Shalom, is a board member of the University of Chicago Women's Board, the Great Lakes Protection Fund and the Gay & Lesbian Victory Institute, according to her campaign.

The Sun-Times reported that she declined to comment about the pending appointment to the EPA office.