Lately, as I’ve walked through the city, I’ve found myself crisscrossing from one side of the street to the other based on the angle of the sun and how much shade the street trees offer. We’ve had a hot, humid stretch here in July, recalling the fierce heat wave in June.
It did occur to me to jump in the water, and I have done so quite a bit this summer, but it has all been chlorinated and in swimming pools. Longtime readers of Grid might remember that I’m a big fan of swimming in natural bodies of water, as indicated when I wrote back in 2010 about taking a dip in the Schuylkill River.
Much more recently, in 2022, I talked with boaters and swimmers at a Northeast Philly boat ramp about water quality in the Delaware River. It was a painfully hot day, and the water was right there. After two of my interview subjects, young men from Brazil who worked in a nearby tire shop, jumped in, I had to follow them. It was magnificently refreshing to plunge into the cool river water, the perfect antidote to the heat.
So I totally get it that on hot summer days plenty of other Philadelphians jump in our creeks and rivers, prohibitions be damned. Devil’s Pool is the most famous swimming hole, but plenty of people wade into the Wissahickon and other creeks at shallower spots that don’t have sexy/scary names that trend on Instagram. And they’re not all thrill seekers drawn in via social media. From what I’ve seen, plenty are families out for a picnic on a hot day doing what comes naturally, and, as Kyle Bagenstose writes in this issue, has been common practice for most of Philadelphia’s history.
Currently swimmers violate park regulations that ban swimming, since virtually all of the accessible Philly waterfront is parkland. Philadelphia Parks & Recreation seems to do little to enforce the swimming ban, though. Plenty of people take the absence of enforcement as tacit permission to get in the water, or at least find themselves faced with no practical disincentive. The City also recognizes no obligation to make the illegal activity safer or cleaner; why would it need to assist people breaking a rule?
I sympathize with park leaders stuck in a bind. They can barely afford to staff the legal swimming spots (pools). Last we checked, the park system had 28% of its positions unfilled across the board. Even if it were fully staffed, I doubt the department would have the rangers and maintenance crews to manage swimming in waterways. If I lacked the money to do my job, as park leadership does, I wouldn’t want to make it even bigger and more complicated.
But the result is lawlessness, a situation in which people routinely drown or get injured. When the City ignores the swimming happening in our creeks and rivers, swimmers are left on their own, swimming at their own risk, and park partners such as friends groups are stuck with the hard task of cleaning up.
Anyone who swims at the Jersey Shore knows that models, such as beach tags, exist for regulating and financing the oversight and maintenance of shorelines. I could imagine fencing in Devil’s Pool and charging people to enter and swim, then using the proceeds to hire lifeguards, direct traffic and pay for cleanups. Of course, sitting here as an armchair park administrator, I can’t say for sure that that would be the best option, or what would work elsewhere along the banks of our creeks and rivers. But I do feel confident that continuing to avoid the issue won’t generate any better solutions.
