Activist To Swim NYC's Gowanus Canal

Via Brooklyn Paper:

He’s going up s---’s creek! A clean-water activist plans to take the ultimate plunge on Earth Day, swimming 1.8 miles through Brooklyn’s nautical purgatory — the Gowanus Canal. Serial activist Christopher Swain will don a drysuit and traverse the canal from its “source” near Butler Street between Bond and Nevins streets to New York Harbor to call attention to the slow-moving federal cleanup of the canal and its surrounding neighborhood. Swain announced today that he will hop into the Canal on April 22 covered from head to toe in protective gear to keep his skin, mouth, eyes, and ears free of the murky waters that famously hides victims of the mob, is covered with oil, laced with heavy metals, flooded with millions of gallons of raw sewage every year, and even has gonorrhea.

The legendarily foul Gowanus Canal is one of the EPA'a 87 Superfund clean-up sites in New York state. And yes, gonorrhea has actually been found in its waters. That isn't stopping luxury condo developments along its banks, of course.