RFK Jr swims with grandkids in sewage-contaminated creek, defying 50-year old ban

Health caput Robert F Kennedy Jr is facing crisp disapproval aft sharing photos of himself and his grandchildren swimming successful Rock Creek, a Washington, DC waterway federally banned for swimming owed to precocious bacterial contamination.Kennedy posted the photos connected societal media Sunday, penning that helium had taken a “Mother’s Day hike successful Dumbarton Oaks Park” followed by “a aquatics with my grandchildren, Bobcat and Cassius successful Rock Creek.”

One representation showed the 71-year-old afloat submerged successful the water, alongside children visibly playing successful the creek.However, Rock Creek, a tributary of the Potomac River, is known to beryllium unsafe for immoderate signifier of h2o contact. The National Park Service has agelong warned that “Rock Creek has precocious levels of bacteria and different infectious pathogens that marque swimming, wading, and different interaction with the h2o a hazard to quality (and pet) health.” According to ABC News, these advisories person been successful spot for implicit 5 decades, with a ceremonial aquatics prohibition progressive since 1971.The country Kennedy visited sits downstream from Piney Branch, which, according to the DC Water and Sewer Authority, receives an estimated 40 cardinal gallons of untreated sewage and stormwater overflow each year. A passageway task is underway to assistance trim the travel of discarded into the creek.As per NBC News, a 2022 DC authorities microbial study confirmed “chronic elevated levels” of E coli successful Rock Creek.

The Environmental Protection Agency has besides classified the waterway arsenic having “fecal contamination” from sewage discharge, which increases during rainstorms.Despite these warnings, Kennedy, presently serving successful the Trump administration, has a past of drafting attraction with his outdoor exploits. According to The...