The sludge report

MILFORD -- When Christopher Swain set out to swim the length of the Charles River, he expected to encounter water rats, trash, and sewage. That was the point of the journey -- to bring attention to the dirty water.

Now, more than halfway through his 80-mile swim from Milford to Boston, Swain is concerned about all the things in the water that he cannot see. Discarded appliances, sunken shopping carts, and submerged logs pose formidable obstacles. And in the foul-smelling water lurks the threat of infection.

To stave off parasites and bacteria, Swain pauses every 20 minutes to gargle hydrogen peroxide mouthwash. "The thing about swimming is you taste every mile," Swain said. "It's funny, then it's not funny."

Swain first plunged into the headwaters of the Charles River on Oct. 12 in Milford. Clad in a wet suit with a thick hood and armed with up-to-date vaccinations for hepatitis A and B, he dove into Cedar Swamp Pond for the first of his swims downstream toward Boston. He swims three or four days a week, going as far as he can in a six-hour day.

The idea of this unusual odyssey is to promote public awareness about the state of the river, Swain said. Several health food and outdoor supply companies are sponsoring the effort, paying Swain about $2,200 a month to swim the river and share his experiences in classrooms and at community events along the way.

This is not the first foray into a polluted river for Swain, 36, an acupuncturist from Colchester, Vt. Earlier this year he swam the length of the Hudson River in New York. Last year, he swam all 1,243 miles of the Columbia River in the Pacific Northwest. He took on the Charles River, he said, because he has lived in Allston and wanted to show his support for a community effort, backed by the US Environmental Protection Agency, to make the river safe for swimming by next Earth Day.

Although the river is much cleaner than it was 10 years ago, environmentalists say there is plenty of work to do. The EPA downgraded the river last spring because of high levels of bacteria that made it unsafe for bathers more than half of the year.

The main cause of the pollution is storm water runoff and illegal sewage connections, said Robert Zimmerman, executive director of the Charles River Watershed Association, a nonprofit group working to improve the river's water quality. Zimmerman said developers sometimes funnel sewage into the river through pipes designated to carry storm water. Sewage also flushes into the river during rainstorms that flood water-treatment plants.

"I hope he doesn't swim into the basin after a rainstorm," Zimmerman said of Swain. "Then he'd be swimming in rainwater and human waste, which isn't fun."

Swain said that is why he does not swim in the river after it has rained. But he has encountered other problems. The water was shallow for much of the first 40 miles of his journey, making his swim more of a slog. He said he has dragged along a "boogie board," which he uses whenever the water is 3 to 5 inches deep.

Approaching the High Road Bridge in a rural section of Bellingham on Oct. 19, Swain plodded through a 15-foot-wide area of river surrounded by marshland. Water came up to his thigh as his foot sank knee-deep into muck. He counted 17 abandoned tires, 13 mallards, and one heron that morning. When he emerged from the water, the feet of his wet suit were tattered from walking through glass and trash mired in the sediment. "I maybe took five strokes today," he said. "Stuart Little could swim this."

Swain said his presence on the river has surprised some residents. A homeowner who spied him alongside the river in Bellingham called the police, who came to see what he was doing. "People ask me if I'm crazy," Swain said. "But their next question is always, 'What's [the water] like?' "

Swimming past the Charles River Pollution Control District, a sewage treatment plant in Medfield, Swain found himself in a section of river where the plant discharges waste water. In his journal, he noted the lack of native fish but an abundance of man-made sludge in the water.

As the river became deeper closer to Dover, Swain said, he crashed into "something hard or sharp" every few strokes. He suspects that the objects beneath the surface are shopping carts and large appliances. He extracted a few of those during a cleanup he organized with townspeople in Bellingham.

Swain avoids large brown and green patches of dead algae, which he said indicated an excess of nutrients in the water from sewage or pesticides.

On Oct. 26, Swain learned that a lymph node in his neck was swollen. He suspected his body was working overtime to expel toxins.

Swain's sister, Amanda Bingham, who meets him periodically to give him hot drinks, said the shallow water and lack of a river current have made the trip more difficult. "He hasn't been able to get into a rhythm yet," she said.

Swain's journey will end Friday in Boston's North End at the Charlestown Bridge. He expects the last 10 miles of the trip through Watertown, Cambridge, and Boston to be the most difficult. Boat traffic will increase as he enters the river's basin. And there, he will swim through stagnant water, loaded with chemicals, fertilizers, and waste.

"You could make an argument that this river is the defining natural element of this city," Swain said. "It says something about us. Do we like what it says?"