Interview With Man Who Swam the Length of Columbia River
CALLEBS: Now, back to NEXT@CNN. I've been waiting for this story. Over the past 13 months, Christopher Swain,</s>CHRISTOPHER SWAIN, SWAM THE COLUMBIA RIVER: I have a good goggle tan, you got to admit.</s>CALLEBS: Good goggle tan. Now, tell me what was the genesis for this? I mean, there are a lot of ways to bring attention to beauty, to concerns. What made you want to swim for 13 months?</s>SWAIN: Well, I think it comes down to this -- you know, I -- I'm a dad, and I want my kid to be able to play in the mud by the side of the river without having to worry about heavy metals and I'm a swimmer and I want to be able to swim my river and it's a contaminated beauty at this point.</s>CALLEBS: Now, how did you do this? I mean, you obviously had some people working with you and I understand about every 20 minutes, at least during some parts of the river, you actually had to rinse your mouth out with hydrogen peroxide because of pollutants?</s>SWAIN: That's right, yeah. I mean it's -- you know, everything about it was a bit interesting, because I was never a competitive swimmer, I'm not a scientist -- you know, I'm not rich, had a family, and then here I'm swimming through this, basically, toxic soup, so everything from gargling with hydrogen peroxide to rinsing off very quickly when I got out of the water, was sort of a -- you know, we did the best we could with it.</s>CALLEBS: You know, you look like you held up great, I mean -- you know, extraordinarily thin at this point. How was it?</s>SWAIN: Well, you know, it's interesting. I mean, watching the physiological changes was sort of a kick, -- you know, over the course of the winter swimming through blizzards and stuff, I put on, actually, a well distributed layer of fat, added about another 12 pounds of fat and 10 pound of muscle, in spite of that. I've had six ear infections, three bouts of shoulder inflammations, four bad colds, couple swollen lymph nodes. The physical side -- you know, it's been sort of interesting, but the long-term consequences are really what -- more what I try to talk about to people. It's not so much one dip, as what does it mean to live your whole life working and playing and using in that river.</s>CALLEBS: Our folks put together an amazing graphic I want to get to in just a moment, but just talk to me about the fact that you don't like labels. As you said, I don't think you want to be labeled as an environmentalist, as somebody who did it for this reason or for that reason. What do you think about that?</s>SWAIN: Well, you know, it's and interesting thing, I mean, I think if it ends with "ist" it probably is a label and I got asked early on by a drunken logger -- you know, who sort of got in my face up in British Columbia -- you know "Are you a goddamn environmentalist?" And, of course I was afraid, right? Because, he's 6'3" and 280. And, I thought about it for a second, and I think, I'm not going to answer it from the fear</s>CALLEBS: I guess people could call that a noble goal. Let's take a look at what I was talking about. We call it "keyhole." You may have seen some of this during the war in Iraq, this is from earthviewer.com, this is where you went in, the headwaters up here. Tell us about this area. You actually had to swim north. I presume you were swimming with the current still?</s>SWAIN: Yeah, that's where there still was current, of course, you know, 13 lakes behind 14 dams, but those first 100 miles I had some current, and it was beautiful blue-green mineral water there at the source in Canal Flats, British Columbia, and some of the nicest chunks of land that we passed through in the whole river, the largest contiguous wetlands left anywhere in North America.</s>CALLEBS: Now, I want to point out, here, now look right there, you see things change, instead of green, it's much more brown. As I understand it, that's a lot of farming that's gone into that area and that's one of your major concerns.</s>SWAIN: Yeah, I think we need to be careful, in -- you know, what we do in the land. We forget sometimes, in these watersheds, everything we do on land ends up in the river. And, my sense as a swimmer is when all those pesticides and herbicides and stuff wash back in, it's got a good place to swim anymore, but there's no blame in there either. I think we need to work together and find ways that, yes, you can farm and yes, I can swim, and nobody's harming anybody and I think that doesn't sound that sexy, but that's the kind of conversation we're going to end up having to have as real people with real values and desires if we're going to get anywhere.</s>CALLEBS: Well, there's so much more we could talk with you about: the Hanford site, -- you know, one of the worst sites in North America. Just an amazing experience, we thank you for coming on, sharing it with us and best of luck to you.</s>SWAIN: Well, thanks a lot. Take care.</s>CALLEBS: OK. Stay with us, everyone. When we come back, we've heard of boaters littering, but this is way over the top. Actually, you may be surprised to learn that it's good for the ocean environment and we will explain exactly why.