{"id":30580,"date":"2023-05-22t18:42:41","date_gmt":"2023-05-22t18:42:41","guid":{"rendered":"\/\/www.getitdoneaz.com\/?p=30580"},"modified":"2024-02-22t17:04:16","modified_gmt":"2024-02-22t17:04:16","slug":"rock-creek-water-quality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"\/\/www.getitdoneaz.com\/story\/rock-creek-water-quality\/","title":{"rendered":"seeking a swimmable d.c.: water quality monitoring in rock creek"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
as another hot d.c. summer encroaches, the 19,000<\/a> people living near rock creek will need to find a way to cool off \u2014 but not in the water.<\/p>\n\n\n\n while the waters may look idyllic, a century-old sewage system and dangerously high levels of bacteria have made the urban national park unswimmable for decades. now, a team of volunteers is working to change that, one water sample at a time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n d.c. residents know that swimming in the city\u2019s waterways is not the best idea \u2014 in fact, it’s been illegal since 1971. lorde shocked concert goers and made national news<\/a> last year when she claimed to float in the potomac before her show. there\u2019s a stigma around the cleanliness of these rivers from decades of pollution, but in recent years, the waterways have been slowly improving.<\/p>\n\n\n\n the environmental protection agency has been trying to make the city’s waterways swimmable and fishable since the clean water act <\/a>of 1972. while the original ten-year timeline for that goal passed forty years ago, the act set in motion a clean water agenda the city is hoping to reach in the next few years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n in 2019, city officials began floating the idea of relaxing or lifting the swim ban<\/a>. but even after decades of cleaning up the waterways, environmentalists question whether the water is safe enough to open to public swimming. data from the d.c. volunteer water quality monitoring project<\/a> is helping shed light on the state of the city\u2019s rivers and streams.<\/p>\n\n\nno-swim zone<\/h2>\n\n\n\n