Stroking the Columbia
An aquatic epiphany
Christopher D. Swain, an average man by his own description, discovered how interconnected we are with nature and how badly we treat her by swimming the Columbia River (largest river flowing into the Pacific Ocean in North-America). Here is the first hand account of his trial:
ON JUNE 4, 2002, I jumped into the Canadian headwaters of the Columbia River, and took the first strokes that would carry me to the Pacific Ocean. No-one predicted success. I was not rich, I was not a scientist, and I was not a fast swimmer. The biggest obstacle I faced was that I was an average guy. When I overheard Canadians whispering things like “He’ll die up North,” I just smiled. They saw me for what I was: some guy from Oregon trying to swim the length of one of North America’s largest and most inhospitable rivers.
I spent 165 days in the Columbia River. That first day I glided through the mineral water of Columbia Lake, the pristine source of the river. I stretched out my strokes, and tore across water the colour of sky. For the first and last time, I made a point of deliberately swallowing some water.
The next day, I kicked past putting greens of the Fairmont Hot Springs Golf Course, and took my first herbicide bath. Four days later, I swam past my first municipal sewage outfall. But even sewage wasn’t all that bad: I knew it when I smelled it. Silicone ear-plugs kept out all but the most determined bacteria. Vaccines closed the door on hepatitis. And activated charcoal tablets put the brakes on diarrhœa. The dangers my Canadian friends had in mind - whirlpools, grizzly bears, rapids and glacial meltwater - were the least of my worries. What kept me up at night were the dangers I couldn’t see.
There was no barrier that could protect my nervous system from the neuro-toxic pesticides that washed into the river from the fruit orchards and dry wheat farms that decorate the Columbia River Valley. There was no technology that could get the PCBs out of my fat cells. And there was no protection from the nuclear waste that spiked the waters of the Columbia River’s Hanford Reach. (The idea of my swimming past the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in a lead suit was funny, but a nonstarter nonetheless. I swam through the most radioactive piece of land in the Western hemisphere with nothing but a five-millimetre wetsuit between me and the strontium-90, technetium-99, uranium and plutonium that plied the same waters I did.)
All of this begs the question, Why would I risk my life by swimming the Columbia River? The answer was that I loved the river, and I swam in search of a way to help her. And I swam with the knowledge that I was part of the problem. The copper and asbestos dust that shaved off from the brake pads of my SUV sifted into storm drains and fouled salmon-spawning streams. The lights I left on sustained a demand for ecosystem-unfriendly hydropower. And when I flushed my toilet at the height of Portland’s rainy winter season, it poured straight into the Willamette and Columbia Rivers.
During the swim, I met over 13,000 residents of the Columbia Basin. Everyone I met testified to their affection for the Columbia River. Even folks whose job it was to vent the municipal sewage lagoons into the river spoke of weekends spent fishing, paddling, and water-skiing. This surprised me, and it got me thinking. So often, stakeholders of a waterway spend their time fighting each other. These fights lead to entrenchment, and eventually begin to affect people’s identities. Without realising it, folks begin to equate resolving the conflict with risking who they are. They end up clinging to outmoded self-concepts and avoiding solutions, while their shared love for the river becomes a casualty of war.
I knew it didn’t have to be this way. And I couldn’t help wondering, What if we all acknowledged our love for this river? What if we leveraged the fact that we share so much common ground? Would our shared affection for the river let us put aside our differences long enough to protect every unspoiled section of river? I hoped so, even though I imagined it might be the work of decades.
What could I do to help? Well, I knew I was part of the problem, so I started with some quick fixes. I rode my bike more. I chose a hydropower-free mix of wind and geothermal power from my electricity provider. I shut off the water while I brushed my teeth. The exciting thing was how easy it was to make those changes. The depressing thing was that it took a 1,243-mile swim in cold, dirty water to motivate me at all.
Continue reading this story at Resurgence.org:
Stroking the Columbia