Is your town/city on a river?

[yabba]

I'm ~15 mins walking away from a big ass lake, and I've swum (swam?) in that. There is a river, but I think it's primary uses are tourist boat tours, dyeing it green for weird fake irish people, and flushing our shit to st louis. dunno if I'd want to swim in it.

I gotta say though, after spending lots of formative time swimming in the atlantic, and the previous 15 or so years swimming in the pacific, fuck freshwater swimming.

 

[parrotheada1a]

Merrimac? Swimming in it several decades ago? Yikes. Swimming in the canals? YYYYYYYYYIKES!!

Yes the Merrimac. When I was a little kid, I remember asking my parents about the river and why it was so polluted. So they told me how the mills & cities up and down the river used it as their waste disposal system. No EPA in those days. All the years of wastes sunk to the bottom, and eventually contaminated the whole river all the way to the ocean. I remember never seeing live fish in it when I was young, and although I love to go fishing the river wasn't any good for it. A couple things that were always present was the smell... and a film of oily scum on the surface.

This was in the 60's and 70's, and by then 90% of the city's mills had been shut down and abandoned since the depression. When I was in high school, I remember doing historical research as part of an assignment. The city library has the Lowell Sun newspaper on microfiche and I used that source for the report. What I found made my skin crawl.... these are excerpts from a modern day account, and they back up what I read from newspapers. The Concord river flows into the Merrimac at Lowell, and was just as polluted.

Among the primary contributors to the growing pollution problem of the Concord River in Lowell were industries located along Hale’s Brook. Also known as River Meadow Brook, this stream drained nearly 24 square miles of mostly farmland, marshy areas, and woodlands in Chelmsford and Carlisle, but in Lowell its two square miles of drainage encompassed a tannery, a small railroad repair shop, several cotton waste and batting mills, and metal fabricating plants. Every day, the Lowell Bleachery discharged millions of gallons of waste “liquors” from washing, bleaching, and dyeing cloth, U.S. Bunting dumped 300,000 gallons of wastewater from scouring wool, washing cloth, and dyeing stock, and U.S. Cartridge released 60,000 gallons of oil-heavy wash water from shell production.

On the river itself, textile production at the Waterhead, Bay State, Belvidere, and Sterling Mills, on Centennial Island, as well as the woolen mills and White Brothers tannery farther down stream, daily generated nearly a million gallons of scouring, washing, dyeing, and curing wastewater as well. [5] In 1878, the Massachusetts General Court had passed a law prohibiting industrial and municipal discharge of refuse or any “polluting substances” into any stream or public pond in the state, but it bowed to corporate pressure and exempted the Connecticut and Merrimack Rivers as well as the Concord within the city limits of Lowell.

Oh, and before I forget, the river was/is used as a source for potable water in Lowell. The water quality now is excellent. It was not that way when I was younger. The city built a water treatment plant years ago upstream just inside of city limits. It has been going through a major rebuild in the past couple years. Lots of re-piping and roadwork going on.

 

[Peen Simmons]

River and a lake. The river is historically disgusting. It also flows backwards as an affront to God.

 

[Steverino]

Yeah the Biloxi and Tchoutacabouffa rivers. They're not giant waterways, but you can swim in them. Down here, we've got beach (which none of the locals swim in, we go to FL) or the rivers. We've got what I call "river people" around here that literally live in little floating houseboats and shacks on the river banks.

 

[Theodore]

 

[Tiltsta]

Yes the Merrimac. When I was a little kid, I remember asking my parents about the river and why it was so polluted. So they told me how the mills & cities up and down the river used it as their waste disposal system. No EPA in those days. All the years of wastes sunk to the bottom, and eventually contaminated the whole river all the way to the ocean. I remember never seeing live fish in it when I was young, and although I love to go fishing the river wasn't any good for it. A couple things that were always present was the smell... and a film of oily scum on the surface.

This was in the 60's and 70's, and by then 90% of the city's mills had been shut down and abandoned since the depression. When I was in high school, I remember doing historical research as part of an assignment. The city library has the Lowell Sun newspaper on microfiche and I used that source for the report. What I found made my skin crawl.... these are excerpts from a modern day account, and they back up what I read from newspapers. The Concord river flows into the Merrimac at Lowell, and was just as polluted.



Oh, and before I forget, the river was/is used as a source for potable water in Lowell. The water quality now is excellent. It was not that way when I was younger. The city built a water treatment plant years ago upstream just inside of city limits. It has been going through a major rebuild in the past couple years. Lots of re-piping and roadwork going on.

When I lived in Lowell in the late 80's the canal system was famous for being loaded with rich sediments. Under a top layer of biological algal mats, there was a layer of Demoulas shopping carts and syringes, and beneath that was 200 years of PCBs and heavy metals. The canals even had a pretty distinct chemical smell to them on really hot days back then. Lowell was a rough place, and the canal water was the least dangerous part of the downtown area.

I lived in Southern NH for several years as a kid in the mid 70's and we were not even allowed to play near the banks of the Merrimac river. The mills of Manchester, Concord, and Nashua had left it a polluted mess, and that was UPSTREAM of Lowell.

 

[Flamencology]

Back yard is oceanfront. It’s a happy place.

 

[Danhedonia]

I seldom skinny dip in the Rio Grande but hippies I know do. It's nice up where I am; I don't think I'd do it south of ABQ either.

I grew up paddling up and down the Concord River (and the Assabet). Memories.

 

[Grant Gross]

Little Patuxent. Seems pretty clean, but it's shallow. Wading would be the thing, not swimming. There's a dam just upriver from my town.

 

[Peen Simmons]

I once got dragged along for one of those awful kayaking on the river situations. The river is crazy congested and full of used condoms and dead ducks and dead rats.

My friend got a rash from where he splashed kayak river water on hisself.

 

[rickenvox]

 

[Gary Blanchard]

The Quaboag River flows nearby. It is great for canoeing or kayaking, but I don't think I'd swim in it. But then too, I am not a swim type person; I'd rather be on the water than in it.

 

[Bob411]

Not me. I have a nephew that lives close to the Iriquois river. Been helping him remove wet drywall. There is a town 25? miles SW of me called Watseka. It gets flooded every year or every other year. It's not a smart place to have a town. 5 miles in any direction would be so much better.

 

[Peen Simmons]

Not me. I have a nephew that lives close to the Iriquois river. Been helping him remove wet drywall. There is a town 25? miles SW of me called Watseka. It gets flooded every year or every other year. It's not a smart place to have a town. 5 miles in any direction would be so much better.

Watseka! My wife’s family has their family reunion there every year! It is flood prone...but partly there’s some local weirdness and buck passing re: creek dredging and field tile.

 

[Bob411]

Watseka! My wife’s family has their family reunion there every year! It is flood prone...but partly there’s some local weirdness and buck passing re: creek dredging and field tile.

I grew up on a farm 15 miles north of Watseka. When I, and or my brother went there, my dad would refer to Watseka as Sin City USA.

 

[Peen Simmons]

I grew up on a farm 15 miles north of Watseka. When I, and or my brother went there, my dad would refer to Watseka as Sin City USA.

The decadence of the Watsekaites has only increased. They have a Steak and Shake now. My wife grew up on a campground 10 miles outside of Milford. Milfordians believed that Watseka people were very uppity.

Now my one bro-in-law lives in Beaverville which is simply hilarious.

 

[Bob411]

The decadence of the Watsekaites has only increased. They have a Steak and Shake now. My wife grew up on a campground 10 miles outside of Milford. Milfordians believed that Watseka people were very uppity.

Now my one bro-in-law lives in Beaverville which is simply hilarious.

I spent my high school weekend nights in Beaverville. In the parking lot of Curby's True Value Hardware Store. More than anything, I waited. Waited for somebody with pot to show up, waited for somebody that looked old enough to buy beer, waited for girls to show up.

 

[Hanglow]

On the Clyde and no ~I wouldn't want to swim in it

I used to do some rowing on it about twenty years ago, there were shit islands and used johnnies floating down, they also tended to fish out the dead drunks at the weir. I'm sure further upstream is better Also the neds used to shoot at us with airguns and throw bricks at us from bridges. Would make it a much more interesting sport if they introduced that at the next olympics

 

[Peen Simmons]

I spent my high school weekend nights in Beaverville. In the parking lot of Curby's True Value Hardware Store. More than anything, I waited. Waited for somebody with pot to show up, waited for somebody that looked old enough to buy beer, waited for girls to show up.

Indeed. The one time I was suckered into going into a pasture to drink by my wife’s (then girlfriend’s) brothers, all it was was waiting...mostly for girls to show up or something.

 

[vonbladet]

Round here it's hard to tell if the water is in a river or a canal. There's certainly plenty of it, though, and very little you'd choose to swim in. (We have Fake Lakes for that, mostly, in the summer.)