“Floatopia”, organized on a recent Saturday, was an attempt to bring the Delaware River’s tubing popularity from Pennsylvania’s northern suburbs and New jersey to the section of river that passes Philadelphia, writes Emily Scott for WHYY.

It was organized by Don Baugh, president of the environmental nonprofit Upstream Alliance.

Baugh hoped the event could promote the urban section of the Delaware River as a safe place to float — sometimes.

The Delaware is a 301-mile-long river that, in most places, is safe to swim and play in.

But it’s still deemed unsafe for human contact in the Philadelphia-Camden section.

Baugh said the prohibition on swimming and wading may not always be necessary.

He said data shows raw sewage does enter the river from sewage treatment plants during heavy rains, but that a day or two later, water quality levels return to normal.

More data is being collected on whether conditions warrant a change to allow tubing and wading in the water.

“The fact that people want to be reconnected to the river and experience it first-hand is a sign of the overall improvement in water quality in the river over the past 50-plus years,” Schmidt said.

Read more about floatopia here.

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