Jody Serrano
Editor in chiefEditor in Chief at Xataka On. Before joining Webedia, I was a tech reporter at Gizmodo and The Messenger. While I've covered all sorts of things related to technology, I'm specialized in writing about social media, Internet culture, Twitch, and streamers.
As the weather gets warmer, more and more of us are going to be getting the urge to cool off. Swimming is great for this! Except when you do so in water filled with poop.
Wading in questionable water. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the Secretary of Health and Human Services, is in the headlines for swimming in Washington D.C.’s Rock Creek this weekend.
In photos Kennedy posted on X, he can be seen completely submerged in the creek, seemingly playing with his grandchildren. However, what raised eyebrows wasn’t the fact the Kennedy went swimming, but rather where he went swimming: Rock Creek.
There’s a reason for that. Swimming and wading in Rock Creek has been banned more than 50 years because of the widespread contamination in its waters.
Click on the image to view the post on X.
Rock Creek. Rock Creek is contaminated by high levels of bacteria and other infectious pathogens, according to the National Park Service, including E. coli. The presence of E. coli is important to point out because of where it’s commonly found: in human and animal poop.
In fact, local officials in D.C. know for a fact that there’s poop in the creek. The culprit is the city’s old sewage system. Marchant Wentworth, a local environmental consultant in D.C., explains that several municipal sewers in Rock Creek have pipes made of vitrified clay that were installed around 1910.
“After a century, they are beginning to fail. Erosion, traffic and the passage of time have produced cracks, fissures, deformations and joint separations,” Wentworth said in a column for The Washington Post. “The result: These old pipes are leaking sewage into Rock Creek.”
A health risk. Swimming in poop-infested water isn’t just disgusting, it can also be harmful for your health. The NPS warns visitors and their animals to stay out of the creek’s water to protect themselves from illness.
Jackie Knee, an assistant professor at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, points out that swimming in waters with microorganisms can cause a host of mild to severe issues, including gastrointestinal illnesses and respiratory, skin, ear, and eye infections.
“There is also a risk of more severe infections caused by organisms including drug-resistant strains of E. coli or other pathogens, which can be harder to treat,” Knee said.
An invisible threat. While high numbers of E. coli and other bacteria can be identified at times—they can make the water appear cloudy or give off an unpleasant odor—contamination isn’t always visible to the human eye.
There are steps you can take to make sure you’re not swimming with poop or other unpleasant pathogens, including reading about where you’re visiting and following local warnings.
If you are swimming in areas with natural waters, Knee recommends you shower as soon as you finish swimming, avoid swallowing too much water, and wash your hands before you eat. There’s also the obvious: Don’t swim if you have a stomach bug or are experiencing diarrhea.
Image | Gage Skidmore
Related | Pooping Outside Your Gut’s ‘Goldilocks Zone’ Might Be a Sign of Poor Health
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