Like most people who have heard anything about the Gowanus Canal — of its murky sludge, oil slicks, raw sewage, carcinogenic chemicals and dying dolphins — Christopher Swain strongly advises against swimming in it.
Unlike most, however, Mr. Swain can now speak from experience. An environmental activist who says he was the first to swim the lengths of the Charles, Columbia, Hudson, Mohawk and Mystic Rivers, Mr. Swain, 47, spent nearly an hour on Wednesday afternoon performing what he called a “modified head-up grandma breaststroke” in the Hulk-green, foam-smeared waters of one of North America’s most polluted waterways.
“It’s just like swimming through a dirty diaper,” he told a crowd of reporters, residents of the nearby neighborhoods and incredulous passers-by who had gathered to see him off at the canal end of Degraw Street. Having some experience with dirty diapers, as well as with other, somewhat less filthy waterways, Mr. Swain had come prepared: His silver Nissan Pathfinder held a pair of black rubber fins, a yellow dry suit, a pair of black gloves, goggles and a green rubber swimming cap on which Mr. Swain had written, in black marker, “#HOPE.”
The full-body protective gear explained itself; the hashtag represented his reasons for immersing himself in the deadly cocktail of a canal, into which factories and Brooklyn’s sewage system have been dumping their waste since the late 19th century. Though the Environmental Protection Agency has designated the canal a Superfund site and plans to dredge up the toxic sludge at its bottom, Mr. Swain wants to see the day when the Gowanus is so clean that anyone can swim in it.
Continue reading the main storyThat day was not Wednesday. Mr. Swain has survived encounters with lightning storms, bloodsucking lamprey eels and water spiked with radioactive waste, but the prospect of swimming the length of the Gowanus proved unexpectedly challenging even before he entered the water.
“I think I’m going to go in here,” Mr. Swain said soon after arriving, making for a fenced-off patch overlooking the northern end of the canal.
“No, you’re not.” a burly guard said.
It was not long before the Police Department caught wind of the project.
“This is not approved,” explained Capt. Frank DiGiacomo. “Obviously, he comes out of the water, he’s contaminated. We have to make sure he’s decontaminated. Obviously, the water he’s in is contaminated.”
Obviously. A 2012 report compiled by the city’s Department of Environmental Protection found that the toxic chemicals in the water included copper, lead, mercury, carcinogenic PCBs, DDT and other substances. The water also teems with bacteria and viruses that, depending on the strength of one’s immune system, could incite a case of nothing, mild diarrhea, dysentery or worse.
“It’s warm right now; what do you think is happening to the water? It’s coming up. It has vapors, and what do you think comes up with the vapors?” said Nasreen Haque, a microbiologist at New York Medical College who has studied the canal. “I worry about what goes through his mouth.”
In addition to the dry suit, which covered him to the neck, Mr. Swain had plugged his ears and rubbed the exposed skin on his head with a water-repellent lubricant.
Cheered on by at least a hundred spectators and nearly as many journalists, he clambered down a metal fence and lowered himself into the muck.
A volunteer kayaked alongside him, holding a bottle of hydrogen peroxide for him to gargle with whenever his unprotected mouth strayed too close to danger. A five-gallon bucket of bleach mixed with water and a good hosing-down would serve as his decontamination system. Captain DiGiacomo and his colleagues gently suggested to Mr. Swain that they would be happy to help him plan a do-over on another day, but Mr. Swain, who was not breaking any laws, was undeterred.
An ungainly but surprisingly swift stroke carried him past several bridges, past a dozen camera-wielding construction workers building luxury condominiums along the canal, and toward Whole Foods on Third Street, where he made landfall and promptly gargled two mouthfuls of hydrogen peroxide.
“It tasted like mud, poop, ground-up grass and gasoline,” he said, answering the question on the minds of everyone present. Its texture was gritty, he said, like drinking another famous Brooklyn specialty, any sort of healthful green juice.
He had planned to get back in and swim the length of the canal, but by then the weather had turned and the tide was going out, which caused him to stir up mud when he kicked. The full swim would have to wait for another day, but a partial triumph was his.
“I’m not even warmed up. I have all this pent-up energy,” he said, addressing the crowd in the manner of a conquering hero. The future of the Gowanus, he said, was bright: “We put a man on the moon; we split the atom; we can do this.”
Small rivulets of black-flecked water ran down his suit and pooled near his feet. It seemed prudent to step back. Far back.
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