0:01 there's an episode of Seinfeld where the
0:03 ever courageous and occasionally
0:05 thoughtless Kramer is having trouble
0:07 with New York City's pools being too
0:09 crowded I got to find a new place to
0:12 swim cuz that pool can't hold me Jerry
0:14 frustrated he does what many wouldn't
0:17 even dream of he decides to swim laps in
0:20 the East River but the question remains
0:22 can you swim in the New York Harbor is
0:25 it safe turns out that you can and that
0:28 it is but it depends on the day at risk
0:31 of bragging our office is literally the
0:32 southernmost building on Manhattan
0:35 Island so all I see out the window is
0:39 water but no beaches no entry points I
0:42 had to look into it I found that today
0:44 the water regularly tests safe people
0:47 jump in swim and reemerge unscathed all
0:49 the time heck there are even
0:51 organizations such as Urban swim and New
0:54 York open water who regularly hold races
0:56 in it and even legally it's fine as long
0:58 as you're not entering restricted areas
1:00 or interfering with both traffic in
1:02 urban swims 10 plus years of staging
1:05 Open Water swims uh we have fortunately
1:07 not have a had a situation where a
1:09 swimmer has gotten sick from the water
1:12 so why all the stigma what is everyone
1:14 afraid of I mean the history has been
1:17 that um in and around Manhattan
1:19 companies were dumping chemicals
1:20 straight into the water
1:22 industrialization was not kind to New
1:25 York City Harbor and was even less so to
1:27 the upper Hudson River for years
1:29 following World War II human waste and
1:31 Tra crash was thrown straight into the
1:35 waterways chemical pollution pcbs heavy
1:37 metals and fecal matter choke the water
1:40 of oxygen making it uninhabitable for
1:42 marine life factories up River namely
1:45 General Electric disposed of millions of
1:47 pounds of toxic chemical compounds
1:50 causing a 70E long 200 mile stretch of
1:53 contaminated water over the last four
1:55 decades though industries that once
1:57 polluted the Waterfront have slowly
1:59 disappeared and the city has steadily
2:03 spent $45 billion in total to improve
2:05 water quality further improvements will
2:07 be made including upgrading sewage
2:09 treatment facilities and adding green
2:11 infrastructure such as green roofs
2:14 permeable pavement and more rainwater
2:17 catchments to reduce runoff the goal
2:18 everyone feels is for all of the
2:21 rainwater to be soaked up which New York
2:23 City was never really designed for the
2:25 city's Department of Environmental
2:27 Protection has said that the rivers
2:29 harbors and bays are cleaner now than
2:32 the have been since the Civil War sure
2:33 you might occasionally see garbage on
2:35 the shoreline but the middle of the
2:38 Waterway the deepest parts is pretty
2:40 darn clean think of it as seeing a
2:43 discarded candy bar wrapper on the beach
2:44 has that ever really stopped you from
2:47 swimming in the ocean there's I think a
2:50 lot of fear in just that making the jump
2:53 into the East River or the Hudson River
2:55 um but then once you're in there you
2:57 realize okay it's swimming I know how to
2:59 swim today environmental nonprofit
3:02 profits regularly check post storm water
3:05 quality at 74 different locations their
3:08 test measures among other things the
3:11 levels of salinity oxygen temperature
3:14 suspended sediment chlorophyll and most
3:17 importantly ano a fecal indicator
3:19 bacteria in the water and the results
3:22 have been encouraging the fact that it
3:25 is a tidal Estuary means that uh the
3:29 Water washes in and out of the harbor um
3:32 on a regular basis twice daily you have
3:36 uh the ties so that definitely um helps
3:38 in terms of water quality the harbor is
3:40 sort of self cleaning if you will in
3:44 fact Atlantic Manhattan the fish not the
3:46 island have started to show up as well
3:48 along with bottle-nosed dolphins and
3:50 humpback whales to eat them so is the
3:53 idea of swimming really so Unthinkable
3:56 is it safe technically and generally it
3:58 is but it depends on one big
4:01 everchanging thing how much rain has the
4:04 city gotten lately to understand the
4:06 safety of swimming in the New York City
4:08 Harbor it's so essential to understand
4:10 something called combined sewer
4:13 overflows let's break it down the
4:14 majority of the city was built before
4:16 1950 and has what's called a combined
4:18 sewer system this just means that a
4:20 single pipe carries both the rainwater
4:22 runoff and the sewage from buildings
4:24 during dry conditions this isn't a
4:26 problem the water's just transported to
4:28 a wastewater treatment plant but during
4:30 heavy rainstorms overflow can occur and
4:31 some of the gross untreated water is
4:33 sent directly into the city's Waterfront
4:36 via sewer outfalls annually more than 20
4:38 billion gallons of this nasty overflow
4:40 is sent back into the harbor which is
4:42 still a major improvement from 110
4:45 billion gallons in 1985 that post
4:48 rainstorm overflow includes toxins oils
4:50 bacteria and Street garbage so it's
4:53 definitely not a good idea to swim for
4:55 the next 48 hours but if it's been dry
4:58 for the past few weeks and it's a nice
5:01 day that's up to you in organizing the
5:03 swim around the Statue of Liberty most
5:05 people breathe to their left so as
5:07 you're swimming around you're always
5:09 looking up the statue you're seeing her
5:11 from the water you're seeing her from
5:14 behind from the front like I'm I'm
5:15 getting chilled just talking about it it
5:19 is so exciting cuz you're seeing it from
5:22 a different perspective uh one that you
5:23 can't get from a boat one that you can't
5:26 get from the land it's hard to describe
5:28 but it is
5:32 it's magical for me anyway as for the
5:35 future of swimming in New York's Harbors
5:37 only time will tell when people start to
5:39 think about the recreational
5:41 possibilities of the water in and around
5:44 their City then they start to care it's
5:46 like if I'm going to swim in that I I I
5:47 want to know I want to know what's going
5:49 on and then once you learn what's going
