What It Looks Like When The Toxic Gowanus Canal Overflows
The Gowanus Canal, with its ten feet of black mayonnaise and 8 billion different strains of E. coli and who knows what else, is pretty much the last American waterway that should be flooding, but that's exactly what happened yesterday afternoon when the skies opened up and delivered onto the city inches of rain in a matter of minutes. How gross the canal is isn't even remotely a secret, but that didn't stop some intrepid folks from rolling, biking, and trudging through the storm surge, and blowing up Instagram and Twitter in the process.
There is no more acute public health crisis than the Gowanus Canal overflowing.— John-Paul Pagano (@johnpaulpagano) July 16, 2015
Just saw videos of the Gowanus Canal flooding 9th Street, rest in piss y'all— wide titty gang (@magicalntsa) July 16, 2015
It's times like these—when people frolic through the surge like it's no big deal—that it's good to revisit an analogy by Riverkeeper's Captain John about diffusing canal water with less-toxic water: "If my labrador retriever takes a shit on the carpet, I don't clean it up by taking the shit and smearing it all over the walls so thin that nobody can see it." No matter how hard it rains, folks, the shit's still there and wading through it is not the best idea.
· The Gowanus Canal Has Flooded and Its Exactly As Gross As You're Imagining [VV]
· Torrential Rain Floods Brooklyn Streets With Canal Water [Curbed]
· Heavy Rains Send Polluted Garbage Water From Gowanus Canal Into Brooklyn Streets [NYM]
· Ten Feet of Black Mayonnaise: A Day on the Gowanus Canal [Curbed]
· Don't Try This at Home: Drinking Water From the Gowanus Canal[Curbed]
· The Gowanus Canal Has Flooded and Its Exactly As Gross As You're Imagining [VV]
· Torrential Rain Floods Brooklyn Streets With Canal Water [Curbed]
· Heavy Rains Send Polluted Garbage Water From Gowanus Canal Into Brooklyn Streets [NYM]
· Ten Feet of Black Mayonnaise: A Day on the Gowanus Canal [Curbed]
· Don't Try This at Home: Drinking Water From the Gowanus Canal[Curbed]
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Also if so much water was indeed draining into the canal, the canal current would have just pushed it out the mouth of the canal......not overflow it onto the streets.
The last time the Canal overflowed was Hurricane Sandy and that took high tides, and a storm swell to get it to overflow.
You probably come in contact with 8 billion different strains of E. coli on the subway, on any given day.
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