[HN Gopher] Brussels battles old prejudices as it frees unloved ...
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Brussels battles old prejudices as it frees unloved river from its
vault
Author : f_allwein
Score : 66 points
Date : 2021-08-27 18:27 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theguardian.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theguardian.com)
| marstall wrote:
| In Boston, similar emotions pertain to the Charles River, which
| runs through it majestically. It's currently swimmable on many
| days after decades of cleanup, but finding a Bostonian who would
| be comfortable taking a dip wouldn't be easy. Same situation with
| the Boston Harbor
| Turing_Machine wrote:
| There's even a well-known song about the Charles.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=62XRy-jFCm8
|
| London has many "vanished" rivers, the most famous of which is
| the Fleet.
|
| In earlier times it was nice enough that a royal palace was
| built on its banks, but by the Restoration it had become what
| Neal Stephenson's _Baroque Cycle_ described as a "river of
| shit" (the palace had been converted into a prison by then,
| too).
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/River_Fleet
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| 'the palace had been converted into a prison by then, too'
|
| So considerate!
| contravariant wrote:
| Well I would also be apprehensive about swimming in a river
| described as "swimmable on many days".
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| Merry Christmas! Happy New Year! Otherwise, get the f out of
| the water.
| schraeds wrote:
| Even most beaches on the ocean have days with no swimming
| flags caused by algae bloom, storm drain off, excess sewage
| release in the area, etc.
| whymauri wrote:
| The water in the Charles feels slimey. Like it has a thin
| microcoat of grossness on top.
| thatcherc wrote:
| I didn't grow up in Boston but spent a lot of time sailing (and
| accordingly, a decent amount swimming) in the Charles River
| Basin in the past several years (go Tech Sailing!). Only once
| ever had a bad experience - got terribly sick for 24 hrs after
| a windy windsurfing day where I was in the water more than I
| was on the board. I was told this was "river fever" and it
| happens from time to time! Otherwise a great body of water.
|
| The days the Charles is unswimmable is a few hot summer days
| after rainstorms (and in the winters when it freezes up!). In
| the summer the water is warm enough and the runoff after storms
| brings in enough nutrients from the city that cyanobacteria
| grow like crazy and create a paralysis risk. On these days the
| Boston DCR does a pretty good job making sure everyone knows to
| stay dry for the day.
| dtgriscom wrote:
| I grew up in the Boston area in the 60s, before the Charles
| River was dammed to prevent Boston Harbor tides from flushing
| into the Charles Basin. Driving along Storrow Drive at low tide
| in summer was a malodorous experience.
|
| Then in the 80s, long after the dam was put in, they had
| enormous air bubblers in the Charles Basin to stir up the
| stagnant bottom water. Fun to sail through.
| animal_spirits wrote:
| Thanks for introducing me to the word "malodorous"
| munk-a wrote:
| I grew up in Boston and actually did some sailing on the river
| as a kid - we coasted around in Sunfishes for the most part.
| Unlike literally every other sailing instruction course I ever
| took there was no forced capsizing tutorial to learn how to
| uncapisize a Sunfish - mostly because nobody's parents would
| ever sign onto a waiver that said "Oh btw, we're going to
| briefly dunk your kid into the Charles".
|
| I love the Charles River and spent a lot of time growing up
| around it in Cambridge and city-side on the Esplanade. I've got
| great memories from both Pops and pop concerts in the Hatch
| Shell - but yea, no where in those memories is anything about
| voluntarily going into the river - avoiding even dipping a toe
| into that was ingrained into us at a young age.
| foobarian wrote:
| Anecdata time. I am from elsewhere so I didn't have that sort
| of context. I had a chance to be rowing on the Charles at
| some point but forgot to bring water with me so I just drank
| from the river with no ill effect. Water seemed pretty clear
| and fresh. I also remember around that time there would be
| periodic news praising the river cleanup success so I
| probably never got to see it dirty.
| munk-a wrote:
| And you're saying you're currently not a Zombie? Oh vanish
| the thought!
|
| Actually, yea, I think the river is quite clean. Especially
| now that I've seen bodies of water that have an oily sheen
| on them - and ones that sting if you get them on your skin.
| I think I'd probably be pretty adverse to swimming in the
| Charles - but I'd definitely prefer it any day over False
| Creek in Vancouver.
|
| My biggest concern with questionable water these days is
| always the bed they rest on - usually the water tends to be
| pretty clear even in heavily polluted areas (though oil
| floats so some forms of pollution are quite contrary to
| that) - but all the really dangerous stuff tends to slowly
| separate out and settle on the bottom. It's when kids get
| in and kick up the muck at the bottom of one of these
| rivers that I get most concerned.
|
| Also yea - this is pretty much all anecdotal as well.
| cossatot wrote:
| Some forms of environmental pollution or toxicity, like
| bacteria, can result in an infection that makes you sick,
| or not. Other forms, like heavy metals (common in
| industrial sites), can cause serious chronic problems
| through prolonged or repeated exposure, but are not
| necessarily going to cause much harm from a single low-ish
| dose.
| selimthegrim wrote:
| I capsized in the Charles one summer around 2007 or so (and
| swallowed some water) with the MIT Sailing Club. I didn't
| have any immediate ill effects but about 5 minutes after I
| got back to the dock I was afflicted by the most painful
| earsplitting headache I have ever experienced even to this
| day. I curled up in a ball and thought I was dying of a
| stroke.
| busyant wrote:
| Not sure if you've ever seen this, but former (Massachusetts)
| Governor Weld staged a little publicity stunt several years
| ago by jumping into the Charles:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yiGbMmqrYrY
| mgbmtl wrote:
| It's worth it. Montreal and it's surrounding cities neglected the
| river and canals, which supported local industry and transport,
| then used to dump toxic soils from digging the subway, or dumping
| untreated sewer water. After much cleanup, there are many spots
| where we can swim, kayak or even surf. It has completely changed
| some neighborhoods (Verdun, Saint-Henri, but also going from
| Bellerive to Boucherville islands).
| alamortsubite wrote:
| The sewer museum mentioned in the article is excellent. Easily on
| par with the Musee des egouts in Paris. I highly recommend it.
| cynusx wrote:
| They didn't bother cleaning it up for that long because the
| stench down-river from Brussels went into a flemish area and when
| they did finally succumb to pressure from the flemish side to
| cleanup the stench of this river they mismanaged the effort and
| the project was late and had a minor corruption scandal.
|
| Calling these prejudices "old" is a stretch, it's only in 2016
| they saw that fishes could survive in the river.
| yvdriess wrote:
| And there was a dispute a few years ago with one of the
| companies that cleans the waste water that flows back into the
| river. They stopped operations and the pollution wiped out the
| fish all over again.
| Firerouge wrote:
| > They stopped operations and the pollution wiped out the
| fish all over again.
|
| Sounds like they shouldn't be paid for any of the work that
| they undid by this
| lupire wrote:
| You expect to work forever after getting paid once?
| dylan604 wrote:
| In Dallas, there's an old joke about the fish in the Trinity
| River swim backwards so they don't get the water in their eyes.
|
| It always amazes me how there's all of the old black&white film
| of industrial waste just pouring into whatever water was nearby
| (river,lakes,etc). However, we know it still happens today, they
| just get more sneaky about it. Again, in Dallas, a slaughter
| house was found to be dumping blood and waste into the river by a
| drone flying over head and the color of the water had an obvious
| color change to it.
| dendrite9 wrote:
| Have you seen the video of the US army disposing of 10 tons
| sodium by dumping it into an eastern Washington lake?
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HY7mTCMvpEM
| dylan604 wrote:
| Clearly, there's nothing wrong with that, just listen to the
| music. If it was bad stuff happening in the film, they would
| have used scary omninous music.
| gus_massa wrote:
| A map would be nice. More info
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Covering_of_the_Senne
| f_allwein wrote:
| Also: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Senne_(river)
| f_allwein wrote:
| Similarly, the Rhine, one of the largest rivers in Germany,
| recovered well after cleanup efforts in the 1980s:
| https://whatsupgermany.de/father-rhines-recovery/
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(page generated 2021-08-27 23:00 UTC)