18.6. and 19.6.2011
Berlin, Neukölln, shipping canal

Bathing in the Landwehr Canal

The bathroom at the front door was a matter of course until the 1950s, but today it is a dangerous luxury.  When it rains heavily, the sewer system overflows and a mixture of rain and sewage with fecal matter from streets, roofs and households flows into the sewer. Polluted canal water, oxygen deficiency, fish mortality, bathing prohibition are the result. An aberration in our treatment of nature.

The few overflow reservoirs and the canal management of the water companies are not enough.  The canals should get bathing quality again!  More roofs and the canal in shallow water zones must be greened, city surfaces must be unsealed, rain  must be infiltrated, ships must create fewer waves, wastewater and stormwater canals must be separated, less wastewater must be treated in an energy-intensive way.

We cleaned the water from the shipping canal and I bathed in it with the active participation of the guests.

Comments

“Great. Next year I’m going in! My dream : bathing in the Spree!!! ( a cousin did it in 1961 and I was small and heavily impressed; however the whole family declared him crazy and had to take a shower afterwards ) A.”

“Well, that was a happening of Jesuit dimenson. R.”

“…. I would have liked to have seen that, if only for nostalgic reasons: my father, a Neuköllner by heart and soul, always told us that he bathed in the canal as a boy. It gave him great pleasure and did him no harm. A.”