The Chicago River is perhaps best known for turning green around St. Patrick’s Day, hosting a rubber duck race, and for the iconic Chicago Architecture tour–but another event held last month had downtown visitors stopping, staring, and taking pictures.
For the second year in a “row,” ComEd’s vegetation goats paraded up and down the Chicago River as part of the Goats on Small Boats parade in which a herd of goats and their special guests enjoyed a scenic cruise aboard five festively decorated boats.
ComEd celebrated the goats in style before sending them out to work. Each summer since 2019, more than 200 goats have joined ComEd to help clear vegetation in places that are hard to reach, like steep ravines and hills. The goats play a critical role in helping ComEd avoid outages and service disruptions due to overgrown vegetation near power lines. Among its benefits, the program drives maximum efficiency of this work, cutting the cost and time by more than half, while also reducing safety risks for workers and air emissions from fuel-burning equipment.
The goats used the time to nap, eat snacks and relax in the sun before heading off to clear brush under hard-to-reach power lines in Matthiessen State Park in LaSalle County, Ill.
You Goat to see it to believe it! Here are all the pictures from the goats’ end-of-summer bash on the Chicago River.
