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What It Looks Like When The Toxic Gowanus Canal Overflows

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#summer #rain #gowanus #parkslope #southslope #thunderstorm #flooding #flashflood #nyc #brooklyn

A photo posted by Ren'ee Bresler (@rkbresler) on


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.

#flooding #flood #stuckbmv #brooklyn #sewerwater

A video posted by Andres Guardia (@andres_guardia) on


#flood #flooding #brooklyn #bmw #bikerules @sorryaboutyourcats @sophibela

A video posted by Andres Guardia (@andres_guardia) on


Gowanus Canal?

A photo posted by Matt Garrity (@garritydrums) on


#flood #fun at work #anotherdayattheoffice #goodtimes #brooklyn #gowanus #gowanuscanal

A photo posted by Bobby Henry (@keepmoving123) on


Brooklyn style flooding #SorryAboutYourCats #SAYC #flood

A video posted by Sorry About Your Cats (@sorryaboutyourcats) on


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]