We Talked to the Guy Who Swam New York’s Horrifically Polluted Gowanus Canal for Earth Day

Growing up, my dad would say that if any part of your body touched the Gowanus Canal, you'd glow in the dark. The waterway that runs nearly two miles through South Brooklyn into the Hudson River and the Atlantic Ocean is an environmental nightmare, an EPA-declared " Superfund" site in the backyard of America's glitziest metropolis. The Gowanus has been turned murky, polluted, and even carcinogenic by decades of combined sewer overflow (CSO) and dumping; on the bottom of the canal sits a layer of gunk that Gowanus aficionados call "ten feet of black mayonnaise."

Needless to say, it's not a very nice waterway in which to swim, but on Wednesday afternoon, that's exactly what Christopher Swain did in front of a crowd of New Yorkers and members of the press.

As Swain, a 46-year-old environmental activist from Massachusetts, descended into the water, someone began to chant, "S-T-D," referring to rumors that anyone swimming in the river could contract gonorrhea, which Swain said he wasn't scared of. He has swam in rivers including the Hudson, Columbia, and Charles to prove a point: that we shouldn't be treating our waterways like this. So on Earth Day—and against the EPA's wishes—he chose one of America's dirtiest canals to bring attention to his cause.

Andrea Parker, the executive director of the Gowanus Canal Conservancy, told me that one of her main concerns right now was development. Over the past few years, the Gowanus neighborhood, like many parts of Brooklyn, has gone from an industrial playground to a real estate gem, with dozens of shiny new buildings going up everywhere. And that demand, of course, makes the need to this damn thing more urgent. "That's 700 toilets we now have to worry about," Parker said, pointing to a waterfront condo nearby.

Before jumping in at the end of Degraw Street, Swain told reporters that "it was like swimming into a dirty diaper." He donned a drysuit, covered his face in water-resistant oil, put a cap on his hair, and stuck goggles around his eyes. He looked like he was going 20,000 leagues under the sea, except we were all watching this guy jump into a literally shitty canal. "So… how do you feel, Chris?" was probably not the best question to ask at this point.

Throngs of onlookers lined the bridges that overlook the canal to watch the swimmer's progress. But the event was delayed—to decontaminate afterward, he would need to have a bunch of bleach poured on him, and city officials were unwilling to let him do that on public land for liability reasons, so he needed to find a private landowner who would let him clean up. This was tricky, as he later told me—one business owner backed out on him—but he eventually got permission from Whole Foods.

All of this meant the swim was delayed for an hour and a half, which led to even more people showing up. Two drones flew above, while a reporter used a selfie stick to track herself and the race to get the best shot of the courageous, GoPro-fitted environmentalist. During his swim, an assistant on a canoe swam beside him and collected water samples along the way.

Two-thirds of a mile and about 20 minutes later, Swain decided to stop the swim because of health and safety concerns from city officials; a storm was approaching. Even his incomplete attempt broke a record: No one had ever swam the entire length of the canal, let alone two-thirds of a mile. He emerged onto the Whole Foods parking lot to a horde of cameras, covered in what looked like grease. Again, "So… how do you feel, Chris?" was probably not the best question to ask.

"If New York really is the greatest city in the world, part of our responsibility of our waterways is to show that even in this place, we're great, too," he told reporters. "Instead of paving it and pretending it can go away, why don't we make something out of it? Why don't we clean it up so it is a jewel and a diamond so people all over the world know, 'They turned the biggest mess in North America, the dirtiest waterway on the continent, into the cleanest way.'

"I'm saying we can do that," he continued.

After getting out, Swain showed me how much grease he had on him. Taking his gloves, he wiped it on the fence to show a streak of muck. Then I asked him some questions.

VICE: So what did the water taste like?
Chris Swain: It tastes like mud, poop, sand, detergent, oil, gas, and then that taste in your mouth after you have a green drink. Not good. It's really cloudy, and about 50 degrees. I can feel it on my gloves and boots. To decontaminate, I'll be getting hosed down, and dumping a bucket of bleach on my head. I washed my mouth out with hydrogen peroxide along the route.

What was this canal's water like, compared to the Hudson and Charles rivers, which you've also swam in?
The weirdest thing about the water here is that you can feel the greasiness on your gloves. And you can't see your own gloves in the water because there is so much goop. That happens—like when I swam in the Columbia River, the water is like that because it has so much rock dust in it. I'm used to that situation. But up by the Flushing Tunnel, you can see foam. That's not seafoam. That's foam from grease and fats that are in the storm drain, basically getting emulsified and foamed up when they're in here. At the bottom, you can feel the goop. "Black mayonnaise" really is an apt thing to call it. The Hudson River, you can feel the bottom, but it doesn't feel like that. It's like black whip cream.

Related: Watch our documentary about the island of garbage floating in the middle of the Pacific Ocean

Now that all of these developments are going up, do you think that the pressure is on the city to clean it up is because of that?
This is some of the most expensive real estate on the planet. Right? And we're seeing pressure. Here's one way to think about it: The EPA is responsible for the mud, and the city is responsible for all the plumbing and all the runoff. For the city, I'd say, "You're doing great, but just keep going." Let's just make sure we redefine clean. Let's define the finish line, let's change the finish line to it being clean enough to swim every day. And there are three reasons for that. One, that's what we need. Two, there's actually a scientific standard for that. And three, that puts it on a human scale. Everyone understands what that means, even if they're in kindergarten, right?

What's your ideal vision of the canal?
I think it'd have soft sides, no more bulkheads. Parks and riparian buffer zones; every development would be required to do it. Plant all of these roofs with rain gardens or vegetable or flower gardens—capture the rain. Fix all the plumbing issues around here, and map all of the ghost springs and streams that used to come in here. Daylight them. Right now, these springs are paved over, and they're connected to the sanitary sewer system. Disconnect them, and send them back into the canal where they used to be. You've got fresh, real clean water inputs. Every dead end street should have a street end park, and there should be incentives to include things like Whole Foods, which basically made a storm garden. They're catching the stormwater that's coming off the property.

So in terms of getting this shit cleaned up, what's in the works right now?
The EPA is putting half a billion dollars from potentially liable companies and their successor companies. That money is going to getting rid of 600,000 cubic yards of muck from the canal by the mid 2020s. They're gonna do it in three sections, they're going to incinerate the sludge because there's so much coal tar residue that it's practically flammable. So it's gonna be a trash energy source. That'll be the muck. Then they're gonna cap what's left. Imagine a ten- to 20-foot layer, anywhere where you are, of sludge. Get that out. Then, cap it. There's probably stuff way down, but the sludge is gone now. The black mayonnaise is gone.

Then it'll be like a normal riverbank, with rocks and sand that fish will like. The reason the water is so dirty, besides the stuff that's dumped in and bubbly, is the plumbing issues. More than half an inch of rain overwhelms the system, because storm water systems share the pipes in the sewer system—the sewer system can't handle it and so it vents to the nearest waterway. Well, this is the nearest waterway. So then you've got a problem.

Chris Swain is going to try to swim the entire canal again at a later date.

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