Taking the Plunge!

The time was mid July and the place was the dock at the Spaulding Rehabilitation Center (to whom we extend our sincere thanks), just opposite North Point Park. The topic? Celebrating the fact that water quality in the Charles is clean enough to allow swimming. On what otherwise was a hot and muggy summer afternoon, swimming advocates and state environmental leaders met with the media to explore possible bathing locations.

The sounding of a Swiss Alp horn brought participants to the Spaulding dock after calls to action by State Environmental Secretary Steve Pritchard, State Representative Alice Wolf, and other environmental leaders. But along the way to the Boston Duck Tour boat (our special thanks to them as well), some participants decided to “beat the heat” with a spontaneous “testing of the water” in the most literal sense. Those taking the plunge included former regional EPA administrator John DeVillars, Bob Zimmerman of the CRWA, Fred Lasky of MWRA, Bill Walsh-Rogalski of the federal EPA, and Paul Parravano of MIT.

Later in the summer, Swiss born Conservancy President Renata von Tscharner carried water from the Charles to the Rhine in Basel, where she poured it into the mighty river as a sign of connection with the Charles. In turn, the Swiss Consul in Boston returned the gesture by pouring Rhine water into the Charles in Cambridge in the hope that the Charles might one day be as swimmable as the Rhine.

Moving forward from the fun activities of July, on November 7th, the State Environmental Affairs Committee of the state legislature is hearing testimony for a proposed Charles River Bill sponsored by Representative Alice Wolf of Cambridge. It calls for a commission to study the Charles River, its water and sediments, with the express goal of making public swimming possible again.

Recent media coverage

No more dirty water, by Jessica Scola. Cambridge Chronicle, January 25, 2007.

For muck's sake. Boston's Weekly Dig, January 24, 2007.

Help wanted: Visionary to get swimming back in mainstream. Boston Sunday Globe, Boston Neighborhoods, January 21, 2007.

'Swimmable Charles' campaign intensifies. Watertown TAB, January 19, 2007.

Swimming in the Charles moves forward—and back. Beacon Hill Times, January 16, 2007.

Read more articles about swimming in the Charles River.