WTH: Baltimore, Maryland Invites 125 People to Swim in The Baltimore Harbor Near Bridge Collapse Where Hazardous Materials Spilled into Water, Sewage, Trash, Drug Needles, and Dead Bodies Float
Waterfront Partnership, a Baltimore, Maryland non-profit “dedicated to enhancing and promoting the waterfront district, parks, and public spaces” is set to host an event in the Baltimore harbor promoting public swimming in the water near downtown Baltimore.
The post WTH: Baltimore, Maryland Invites 125 People to Swim in The Baltimore Harbor Near Bridge Collapse Where Hazardous Materials Spilled into Water, Sewage, Trash, Drug Needles, and Dead Bodies Float appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.
Waterfront Partnership, a Baltimore, Maryland non-profit “dedicated to enhancing and promoting the waterfront district, parks, and public spaces” is set to host an event in the Baltimore harbor promoting public swimming in the water near downtown Baltimore.
Supposedly, elected officials, including leftist Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott, plan to start the event with a ceremonial jump on June 23. “We must start swimming,” although work to clean up the harbor is “far from over,” said the Waterfront Partnership’s Healthy Harbor Initiative chairman, Michael Hankin. According to the Healthy Harbor Initiative’s annual report card, water quality in the harbor is only safe for swimming “most of the time in dry weather.”
Per Baltimore Fishbowl,
Waterfront Partnership will host a public “Harbor Splash” swimming event on Sunday, June 23, 2024, and registration opens on May 29 for all “Harbor Splash” newsletter subscribers who would like to take the dive!
A group of key partners and elected officials, including Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott and Maryland Comptroller Brooke Lierman, will start the event with a ceremonial jump at 9:20 a.m. from a floating dock at Bond Street Wharf in Fells Point.
The event is made possible by over a decade of work by the Healthy Harbor Initiative championing the goal of a “swimmable, fishable” Baltimore Harbor. Healthy Harbor has worked with numerous partners including nonprofits, educational institutions, the local government, business leaders, volunteers, and of course, the Trash Wheel Family to make the Inner Harbor clean enough to swim in.
“We know our work is far from over, but we must start swimming. It’s a commitment to keep working to ensure that our ecosystem thrives and that swimming in the harbor becomes a routine occurrence,” said Michael Hankin, president and CEO of Brown Advisory and chairman of Waterfront Partnership’s Healthy Harbor Initiative. “We had an ambitious goal and, with a lot of hard work and people believing we could do it; we are finally realizing our vision.”
This area is just miles away from where a cargo ship collided with the Francis Scott Key Bridge at the southern end of the Baltimore Harbor. As The Gateway Pundit reported, as many as 1.8 million gallons of fuel and other hazardous materials likely spilled into the water, and authorities suspended their search-and-rescue mission for the six bridge workers who fell into the water and were presumed dead. There still remain two missing bodies out of the eight who were victims of the collapse.
If you want to risk unknown diseases or exposure to hazardous materials by swimming in the dirty Baltimore Harbor water, you can register to jump in here.
In 2010, Michael Hankin, CEO of Brown Advisory Baltimore, launched a campaign to make the harbor “swimmable and fishable.” Since then, there has been an array of problems.
As recently as last month, the body of a missing man was found in the harbor in the neighborhood next to Bond Street Wharf in Fells Point, where people are encouraged to swim. Several other reports of bodies being fished out of the harbor in recent years can be found online.
In 2021, “major maintenance and operational problems at the city’s two wastewater treatment plants were discovered, with high bacteria levels routinely detected in the discharge to the harbor from the Patapsco River facility.”
The state urges people “especially children and women of child-bearing age — to limit consumption of locally caught crabs and some fish because they have toxic contaminants picked up from past industrial activity.”
To deal with some of the visible pollution, Mr. Trash Wheel was instituted to be the first “trash interceptor of its kind” and has so far removed “millions of pounds of debris from the Inner Harbor.”
Overflowing trash in the harbor is coupled with "persistent sewer leaks throughout Baltimore City" and an "overflow-prone sewer system." After the city reportedly dumped more than $1 billion into fixing the sewer system, "there’s been a 75% decline in the volume of untreated sewage overflowing into the harbor since 2021." According to Lindquist, the deadline for sewer repairs is not until 2030.
It is unclear why there would be such a heavy push to start putting people in this water or why they "must start swimming," as Waterfront Partnership's Michael Hankin put it.
Per Bay Journal,
“By no means are we saying mission accomplished, we can all go home,” Lindquist said. The city’s sewer repairs are expected to continue for several more years, with a 2030 deadline, he noted. “By making a splash,” he added, “we are also taking a stand, [saying] that cleaning up the harbor is important, and we need to keep working on it.”
The sampling shows that water quality in Baltimore’s harbor is closely connected to rainfall, which washes animal waste off pavement and causes sewer overflows, Lindquist said.
Despite all the problems, the time has come for people to jump in and make a splash. Some sensible individuals have expressed their concerns on social media.
One, who says they are a former environmental scientist, said, "It's incredibly dangerous and irresponsible" for these organizations to encourage people to swim in the water "filled with fecal bacteria, lifetime pollutants, and more." Other commenters roasted the idea and joked that you'd need a vat of antibacterial soap or that you would come out glowing:
Another noted that the water smells like the taste of "yak piss." They continued, "Make sure to yank out all the heroin needles you'll get stuck with."
Others used it as an opportunity to make fun of the COVID-19 sheep, wondering how people will be safe with wet masks or whether a triple vaxxed person will be safe:
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The post WTH: Baltimore, Maryland Invites 125 People to Swim in The Baltimore Harbor Near Bridge Collapse Where Hazardous Materials Spilled into Water, Sewage, Trash, Drug Needles, and Dead Bodies Float appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.