Dangerous Dive

When the government of Guangdong province in southern China launched a campaign in 2002 to clean up the Pearl River, officials memorably promised that within three years the water would be “neither black nor stinking,” and completely clean by the end of the decade. China’s environmental regulators have been inching towards those goals: last month, after a government campaign called Operation Green Sword cracked down on more than 80 companies that were allegedly polluting the waterways around Guangzhou, provincial authorities triumphantly declared the Pearl River safe for swimming.

But a government-planned swimathon this week, which organizers hope will attract around 1,000 participants, has worried some who think it’s too soon to risk a plunge in the Pearl. “I wouldn’t swim in it,” says Professor Ho Kin Chung, head of the Environmental Studies program at the Open University of Hong Kong, who worries about health risks posed by taking a dip in the water. “I think it’s crazy.” Indeed, doctors have advised swimmers to flush their eyes with antibiotic drops, and to refrain from taking part if they have cuts on their skin, while Guangzhou’s Yangcheng Evening News quoted a woman whose training swims in the river left her with diarrhea and eye inflammation. Her sage advice to swimathon contestants: wear a wet suit.