Tubing - Wissahickon Creek?

[FLiP]

#1 Are you allowed to?
#2 Is the water clean?
#3 Has anyone here ever done it?


I guess this question is valid in 2 forums

[PhillyTex]

I saw half a dozen people tubing in the creek yesterday, plus at least 20 people jumping and swimming around in Devil's Pool. As far as I know, swimming is not allowed in the creek but people have been doing it for generations, at least around Devil's Pool. The PPD recently said they'd be cracking down on it (particularly the illegal parking that comes with it) but I haven't seen any evidence showing that was anything other than a PR blurb to quiet upset residents.

[D-man]

1) The Fairmount Park Commission's policy is that swimming is prohibited in any waterway within the park system. That said, it is rarely enforced.

2) I have seen some reports in the past indicating that the water is not clean. There are some suburban municipalities upstream that actually dump sewage into the creek.

3) I would think that you would have to try it after a heavy rain. There are parts of the creek where the water level looks too low for tubing.

[redpinstripes]

1) The Fairmount Park Commission's policy is that swimming is prohibited in any waterway within the park system. That said, it is rarely enforced.

2) I have seen some reports in the past indicating that the water is not clean. There are some suburban municipalities upstream that actually dump sewage into the creek.

3) I would think that you would have to try it after a heavy rain. There are parts of the creek where the water level looks too low for tubing.

I believe the worst sewage problems come with a heavy rain - I'm not sure that would be the best time.

[seand]

I believe the worst sewage problems come with a heavy rain - I'm not sure that would be the best time.

Correct. Because it stirs up all the crap in the storm sewer system and because in Philadelphia when the rain going down the downspout of houses overhwhelms the sewer pipes they dump directly, untreated in any way, into the storm system and into the creek. Right after a heavy rain is also the worst time to boat in the Schuylkill also as a result.

[Reds]

I've looked this up before to satisfy my curiousity (and following an intense desire to jump in the creek many times following long hikes or MTB rides) and this is what I found from http://fow.contextdevel.com/about-pa...afetysecurity:

Swimming
Swimming in any of Philadelphia’s rivers and streams is illegal and dangerous. The Philadelphia Department of Public Health states that swimming and wading is not permitted due to risks of drowning, injury from submerged objects, strong currents, and other hazards. In the past, swimmers at Devil’s Pool have drowned or suffered a permanent disability.

Swimming in Philadelphia creeks and rivers is also a serious health hazard. About 90% of the flow in the Wissahickon contains wastewater (treated sewage). People and animals risk bacterial and viral disease by swimming or wading in the Wissahickon Creek. Swallowing even a small amount of this water exposes a person to parasitic diseases like Giardiasis or ryptosporidiosis, with symptoms of cramps, diarrhea, nausea, and fever

This is the "official" word from Friends of the Wissahickon, so take it as you will. I've seen people swimming in Devil's Pool a million times but I never knew any of them personally to find out whether they later died or grew three extra heads as a result.

[PhillyTex]

This is the "official" word from Friends of the Wissahickon, so take it as you will. I've seen people swimming in Devil's Pool a million times but I never knew any of them personally to find out whether they later died or grew three extra heads as a result.

For some of these people, mutations would be an improvement.

[pechinbar]

I saw half a dozen people tubing in the creek yesterday, plus at least 20 people jumping and swimming around in Devil's Pool. As far as I know, swimming is not allowed in the creek but people have been doing it for generations, at least around Devil's Pool. The PPD recently said they'd be cracking down on it (particularly the illegal parking that comes with it) but I haven't seen any evidence showing that was anything other than a PR blurb to quiet upset residents.

The PPD have been down there everyday since Saturday when I am exercising at VG Inn, on motorcycles, by foot and parked in the lot...That said there was also a steady stream everyday of folks walking the path to Devil's Pool. I know part of PPD's presence is bc of theft from vehicles in the parking lots at VG.

[PhillyTex]

Glad to hear it wasn't just idle talk from the PPD. I was only down there from about 6-6:30 last night. There was the usual crowd of teenagers at Devil's Pool, a family swimming in the Wiss below the dam at Livezey's Mill, and another family tubing up by the big rock near Devil's Pool. (Does anyone know if that rock has a name, by the way?)

[Politburo]

Correct. Because it stirs up all the crap in the storm sewer system and because in Philadelphia when the rain going down the downspout of houses overhwhelms the sewer pipes they dump directly, untreated in any way, into the storm system and into the creek. Right after a heavy rain is also the worst time to boat in the Schuylkill also as a result.

Some sections of the city have a separate storm system (http://www.phila.gov/water/images/ComSep_Sewers.jpg). CSOs for the city are not (supposed to be) on the Wissahickon (PWD Combined Sewer Overflow Program - WHAT ARE COMBINED SEWER OVERFLOWS (CSOS)?) but the towns upstream have CSOs that empty to it.

[seand]

Some sections of the city have a separate storm system (http://www.phila.gov/water/images/ComSep_Sewers.jpg). CSOs for the city are not (supposed to be) on the Wissahickon (PWD Combined Sewer Overflow Program - WHAT ARE COMBINED SEWER OVERFLOWS (CSOS)?) but the towns upstream have CSOs that empty to it.

1. This map clearly includes sections of Germantown, East Mt. Airy.


2. They not too long ago found fecal coliform in the Monoshone Creek that flows past Rittenhouse Town proving sewage going directly into the Wissahickon at that point.
http://www.philadelphiaweekly.com/ne...**s-Creek.html

FWIW, I let my dog swim in the Wissahickon upstream of there, under the foot bridge, as many other dog owners do. I just don't dive in myself.

[PhillyTex]

The fecal coliform comes from storm sewers, too. Some dog owners like to toss their poop bags into the sewer inlets.

[seand]

The fecal coliform comes from storm sewers, too. Some dog owners like to toss their poop bags into the sewer inlets.

Well that idiotic but do you want to dunk your head in it regardless?

[PhillyTex]

I never suggested that anyone of normal intelligence would or should swim in any of the area creeks!

[CHIOSSO]

-- On June 13, 2006, Merck discharged potassium thiocyanate (KSCN) that reacted with the chlorination at UGT POTW and after discharge caused extensive fish kills in the Wissahickon Creek on June 14th and 15th; also causing the Philadelphia Water Department to close its Schuylkill River drinking water intake on June 14th and 15th; and causing PA DEP to issue health advisories to ban all recreational uses on the Wissahickon Creek for the period June 14, 2006, through July 10, 2006.

-- On Aug. 8 and 9, 2006 Merck discharged a large batch of spent substrate used for vaccine production which when treated at UGT POTW caused extensive foam discharge into the Wissahickon Creek.

-- On Aug. 16, 2006, Merck discharged a large amount of cleaning agents that when treated at UGT POTW caused extensive foam discharge into the Wissahickon Creek.

Merck Settles Clean Water Act Violations at its Montgomery County, Pennsylvania Pharmaceutical Plant - Drugs.com MedNews

When I was a kid we used to swim in the creek all the time no ill effects so far. I would not do it now. Oh and PhillyTex we always called it big rock . Had a friend who broke his arm diving at big rock something under the water.

[StrangeTanks]

I go inner tubing all the time. I've stayed away from the Wissihickon though because I've heard it was contaminated with some kind of chemicals.

My best recommendation would be the Brandywine, although I stopped going there last year because some knuckleheads started an inner tubing business on it and completely wrecked the peace and quiet.

Been meaning to try Pennypack this year if anyone has any thoughts on that one.

[seand]

Been meaning to try Pennypack this year if anyone has any thoughts on that one.

Look at the map on this link from up thread.
PWD Combined Sewer Overflow Program - WHAT ARE COMBINED SEWER OVERFLOWS (CSOS)?

If you do it. Don't do it after a heavy rain storm.

[billy ross]

Look at the map on this link from up thread.
PWD Combined Sewer Overflow Program - WHAT ARE COMBINED SEWER OVERFLOWS (CSOS)?

If you do it. Don't do it after a heavy rain storm.

The Wissahickon has the most sewage and is the most unpleasant during periods of drought like now when the natural springs dry up, the flow becomes sluggish, and the majority of the flow is treated or even untreated sewage. You want to be on the Wissahickon not when it is at flood stage but when there's a healthy amount of rainwater diluting the nasty stuff.

Your advice is almost 100% wrong. I'm a plumber. I'm a boater. My neighbors are water department guys. Where's waterman when you need him? When the rainwater drops off and the only flow that's left is manmade is when the Wissahickon is nastiest.

The guy who's in charge of the city's storm water program told me that during drought conditions the Wissahickon is more than 100% treated sewage - something about percolation that I didn't understand. The biggest problem is the effluent from the sewage treatment plants on the Wissahickon in Montgomery County. Philly isn't the real problem. All of the work the water department has been doing along the creek hasn't been to reduce cso's. It's been to conserve rainwater and release it slowly to maintain the freshwater ( as opposed to used water) content of the flow in my drinking water.

[seand]

That map show that immediately after a heavy rainstorm combined outflow, not treated sewage, but a mix including completely raw untreated sewage is dumped into Pennypack at several locations on the map. Yes the sweet spot is neither drought nor flood but the high water mark immediately after a heavy rain means completely untreated poop direct from people's toilets at each of the locations on that map. Undilluted but treated sewage is bad. Untreated sewage, raw poop, floating on top a flood is a microbial paradise.

Note I was responding to a question about Pennypack, which the map shows several CSO's from Philly.

[JasonMcElroy]

The guy who's in charge of the city's storm water program told me that during drought conditions the Wissahickon is more than 100% treated sewage

Misquote?

Or has the mysteriously murky and polluted Wissahickon and Monoshone figured out how to break the laws of matter?

Jason

p.s. - I've swam in there a number of time. I've always done it when the water was really moving earlier in the season but not after a big storm. I lived. Friend of mine did get a rash from it. It gives my dog the runs almost instantaneously too, but he at least manages to make it to the banks first ;-0