Exhibition Guide

The city’s waterways are reputed for excessive trash, harmful levels of bacteria and sewage spills. That didn’t stop more than 150 people from plunging into the Inner Harbor. Sunday morning’s “Harbor Splash” was more than 13 years in the making, an effort by the Waterfront Partnership of Baltimore to make the city’s harbor swimmable and fishable. In September 2024, about a dozen water advocates and researchers decided to prove the harbor was swimmable by leaping off a floating dock at the Bond Street Wharf in Fells Point.

When Congress enacted the Clean Water Act over President Nixon's veto in 1972, the Chesapeake Bay was suffering from significant pollution problems. Now, 50 years later, we discuss the impact of this landmark federal law on the Bay's water quality, and what work is still left to do.