Allison Corning wrote: > > Hi everyone! > > I guess this is directed more towards our New York paddlers or other city > dwellers: I just finished reading an article in the new Outside magazine > about the NY police scuba unit and it contained some really nasty > descriptions of New York Water quality in the rivers- a plethora of nasty > little bugs and carcinogens etc. Now, I know there is a big difference > between paddling on top and mucking about in the bottom goo/fecal sludge, > but I'm wondering if anybody takes special pollution precautions? How bad IS > the water? The waters are more than clean enough to paddle in most areas of the harbor. People practice rolling and rescues in the waters. And there are nearly a half dozen swimming events held each year under the auspices of the Manhattan Island Foundation (they have a website, I think it is http://www.nycswim.org ). People do not take shots for doing these events whereas at one point in the round-Manhattan swim it was a must. There are several highly polluted areas in Newton Creek and The Gowanus Canal, the first on the Queens/Brooklyn border, the second in Brooklyn. The latter was on a recent PBS show under Lavendar Lake to describe its color because of heavy pollution. But even both these places are getting cleaner especially where they come out into the East River or Buttermilk Channel. For the most part the city's sewers go through several local processing plants that reduce pollution levels. The trouble in New York is that we don't have separate storm sewers and household/commercial discharge sewers. The plants can handle the volume of gray water coming from toilets and other commercial and household discharge; they can give this kind of discharge the necessary steps and time to clean it up. But if we have significant rain, then the gray water may be discharged into the river before getting the full, optimum treatment. So one doesn't plan to do rolling or rescue practice in the vicinity of those discharges after a rain. We give it 24 hour or so. The waters here are blessed by strong currents that come in from the Atlantic and Long Island Sound. The figures I read are that the waters would be totally flushed clean their entire depth in 7 days if there was no new discharges into the harbor. In addition there is quite a volume of fresh water coming down the Hudson which is a fairly wide and poweful river. And there are many other fresh water sources emptying into our waters. Empirically, I look at myself and other paddlers who have been paddling here for 10 years or more. None of us have health problems or skin sores or rashes other than those you can get from salt water. BTW, I would never drink the water...it is largely salt water. And I don't get panicky if I happen to get some in my mouth. None of this is to minimize the dire measurements of water quality you see and hear about. I am certain that at great depths the levels talked about are true. But so are air readings in a busy city. ralph diaz -- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Ralph Diaz . . . Folding Kayaker newsletter PO Box 0754, New York, NY 10024 Tel: 212-724-5069; E-mail: rdiaz_at_ix.netcom.com "Where's your sea kayak?"----"It's in the bag." ----------------------------------------------------------------------- *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - All postings copyright the author and not to be reproduced outside PaddleWise without author's permission Submissions: paddlewise_at_lists.intelenet.net Subscriptions: paddlewise-request_at_lists.intelenet.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************Received on Tue Feb 29 2000 - 08:18:28 PST
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