Forget the Cottage. Jump in the River.

I’m a water quality expert, but I didn’t start swimming in the Rideau River until the first summer of COVID. I live and work in Ottawa, and when the pools and gyms closed, I decided to try the river for the first time instead. It surprised me how lovely and beautiful it was to swim in. In Manotick, where I live, the water is a lovely green, and ducks often paddle alongside me. I swim whenever I have time—sometimes on my lunch break or in the afternoons. It’s a way to immerse myself in nature, and it’s so good for my body and mental health. I can swim along the shore and wave to my neighbours. I want more people to feel good about swimming in the river, too.

Unfortunately, the perception of the Rideau River isn’t great. It flows right through the city and has the same story as countless other urban waterways: in the 1960s and 70s, industrial pollution forced public beaches to close down. Around 20 years ago, Ottawa had the “Sewergate” scandal where, for two weeks, hundreds of millions of litres of untreated sewage and wastewater were discharged into the Ottawa River due to a technical malfunction. After that, the city invested hundreds of millions of dollars in wastewater infrastructure and sewer-water management to clean up the water. It was the first big city in Canada to do so. 

Pretty much all urban lakes and rivers in Canada, including the Red River in Winnipeg and the St. Lawrence, are far cleaner today than they once were. Decades of investment in wastewater treatment, backed by ever-improving technology and tougher regulations, have paid off. People no longer have to worry about industrial or wastewater discharges, except when it rains heavily and sewage systems become overwhelmed. And concentrations of the industrial chemicals that once plagued our waterways have dropped so low they rarely exceed guideline thresholds. But it’s very difficult to overcome a bad reputation. The ’60s and ’70s weren’t so long ago, and people remember. Lack of information and knowledge is a real problem. 

Across Canada, we generally don’t collect data to measure the water quality in our rivers and lakes. Ottawa Public Health measures water quality at only a handful of supervised beaches. On the Rideau River, where I swim, there’s only one spot that the City of Ottawa tests once a week: Mooney’s Bay, an artificial beach created when the canal was built. As a public service, and to show the water is clean and safe, my lab at Carleton University started testing at five sites on the river at the beginning of the summer and posting our results on our website. 

We measure E. coli because that’s an indicator of water pollution and the standard in Ontario. The test itself is easy, inexpensive and quick, though results take 24 hours. There’s no reason it can’t be widely deployed. The hassle is in collecting the samples, which come from multiple locations across the city and involves transportation and temperature control. We have to guard them against contamination, too. 

People hear “E. coli” and panic, but most strains are harmless. It already lives in your body as part of your microbiome, and only a few strains produce toxins that can make you sick. Ontario’s safety limit is 200 E. coli per 100 mL—stricter than Switzerland’s 500 E. coli per 100 mL, despite the country’s famously clean and swimmable rivers and lakes. The Swiss even swim to work during the summer. Our samples have stayed well below the Ontario limit all season, except for late July, when Mooney’s Bay hit 238 E. coli. People think that area is the only swimmable location on the river, so it gets crowded there, which drives E. coli levels up. More people mean more food, birds and animals, and in hot, stagnant water, that bacteria—shed by humans and animals alike—multiplies. Officials had to close the beach until the levels went back down.

Of course, there are many spots beside clear beaches where people can swim. A river is a natural ecosystem, so it can and will sometimes look murky. That doesn’t mean it’s not clean or safe to swim in. Maybe you don’t want to because of the weeds—and that’s a personal choice—but they have nothing at all to do with the water quality or safety. Interestingly, people have no problems at all swimming in lakes. They have the same ecosystems, they’re murky, and geese poop in them, too. 

I often hear people say, “I only swim in lakes—never the river.” It’s great that people can afford a cottage, but countless others, of course, can’t. Not everyone has the time for a long drive to a beach, either, but plenty have time for a quick dip close to home. As climate change drives hotter, more frequent heat waves—especially in a country warming as fast as Canada—access to nearby rivers matters. On our hottest days, people need safe, swimmable water to cool off.

When it comes to river swimming, the real hazard isn’t contamination. It’s drowning. I always swim against the current first so I can turn around and come back very easily. Or I can float back, since I wear an orange air floatation device to remain constantly visible. If you have kids, you probably want to be on a beach. If you’re not a strong swimmer, you should bring a friend. For those of us who want to swim in rivers, I hope that city officials across the country will continue working to create safe swimming spaces that protect everyone. With the right planning, everyone could have a safe place to cool off in the river.

—As told to Rosemary Counter

Banu Örmeci is the Jarislowsky Chair in Water and Health at Carleton University and director of the Global Water Institute.