What Would It Take to Make Lake Merritt Swimmable?

Bay Curious

KQED

History, Society & Culture, Places & Travel

4.9 • 999 Ratings

🗓️ 23 March 2017

⏱️ 8 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

It would take a lot of money, work and imagination to turn Lake Merritt into a swimmable body of water. Reported by Jessica Placzek. Bay Curious is Olivia Allen-Price, Vinnee Tong, Paul Lancour, Suzie Racho and Julia McEvoy. Our Vice President for News is Holly Kernan. Theme music by Pat Mesiti-Miller. Ask us a question at BayCurious.org. Follow Olivia on Twitter @oallenprice and use the #BayCurious hashtag.

Transcript

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0:00.0	From K-Q-Q-ED. Lestroto, Argentina.
0:18.0	It might sound like we are on a gondola ride in Venice, but we're actually in Oakland.
0:25.2	On Lake Merritt, you're listening to Bay Curious.
0:29.4	This is Olivia Allen Price and Jessica Plotchek. And for those of you who haven't visited, Lake Merritt is in the
0:35.8	middle of Oakland. It's surrounded by bike paths, walking paths. Right now we're floating
0:40.1	alongside kayakers. It's a very pleasant place,
0:43.0	and while locals love this lake,
0:45.0	most people get kind of squeamish
0:47.0	about the idea of getting in the water.
0:50.0	Like local 8-year-old Violet Weigle.
0:52.0	It's yucky because there's like duck poo and spider webs and little insects and stuff.
1:00.4	Which brings us to this week's question.
1:02.4	What would it take to make like Merritt swimmable?
1:05.0	We thought this would be a pretty fun thought experiment.
1:08.0	So I took that question across the lake to James Robinson of the Lake Merritt Institute.
1:13.4	Would you swim in it?
1:19.1	Oh, you made me laugh out loud.
1:23.0	At this point, no.
1:25.0	James says Violet is right.
1:27.0	The lake is nasty.
1:29.0	So we have 62 plus storm drains that drain into Lake Merritt and an urban runoff from 7 square miles.
1:35.4	It's a lot.
	...

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