NEW YORK (WCBS 880) — It’s one of the dirtiest and smelliest waterways in America, but there are still people who regularly paddle down Brooklyn’s Gowanus Canal.
“It’s legendary in New York as being one of the most polluted waterways,” says Dr. Mark Stoeckle, a professor at Rockefeller University.
The canal is a Superfund cleanup site, which the federal government designates as being the most polluted in the country.
“There are parts, if you look, it looks like a gas station leaked and spilled everything into the water,” Dr. Stoeckle said.
The water is filled with untreated water waste from Park Slope and other areas of Brooklyn, and while most people would try to avoid the waterway, others regularly go out for canoe tours.
Our Mike Sugerman recently headed out with them and accompanied roughly a dozen other people who paid good money to take a trip down the “smelly, dirty creek.”
The group is called the Gowanus Dredgers Canoe Club, and they have been operating for nearly 22 years.
While some might think it’s ridiculous to trek into such polluted water, group members say the club started as a way to help the environment.
“We felt that if people were in direct contact with the waterway, perhaps then the government would clean it up,” says club member Owen Foote.
The tour takes off around twilight and lasts for an hour and half.
Sugerman said the tour “really is cool” and gives residents an opportunity to see parts of the city that they would never see from other vantage points.
Along the tour, canoers will learn about the history of the canal – and see wooden docks that are still intact from the 1860s – and the discuss the potential the canal holds.
Canoers who ventured out say they really enjoy the tour, with one participant telling Sugerman, “It was amazing.”
For those who are still skeptical, another guest says: “Why not? Global pandemic – go on a Superfund canal? Might was well try everything.”
Sugerman notes there are plans to develop the Gowanus’ banks, and things are slowly getting better, so there’s no better chance to tour the Superfund site than now.
To learn more about the Gowanus Dredgers Canoe Club, visit gowanuscanal.org.