Why I Would Never Swim in Lake Erie

Monroe — Last year I asked my parents how much it would take for them to swim in Lake Erie. “A million bucks,” is what my dad said after a hearty guffaw. The proposition of swimming in that once unholy and polluted body of water was absurd in his mind.

I kindly informed them that it’s better now. It’s not like the 1970s anymore. It’s clean, people swim in it, people fish in it. I showed them pictures of blue water, blue sky, large gray rocks, and whitecaps that you could mistake for Lake Michigan. But they weren't persuaded by any of the newly updated ecological facts of Lake Erie in 2026. Lake Erie is not for swimming under any circumstances—with the exception of that $1,000,000 check. They will not be taking a dip in waters that once, famously, caught on fire.

Now is the point where I might explain how my parents are judging Lake Erie unfairly, how they are being old fogies stuck in the past, sticks in the mud refusing to update their software in the face of a less polluted world. I could simply label them Lake Michigan supremacists judging poor sweet Lake Erie unfairly.

But I can’t do any of that, because they might be right.

The truth is, I feel the same way my parents feel about Lake Erie, and I suspect most Michiganders who are within striking distance of Lake Huron, Michigan, or Superior feel this way too. Lake Erie is a sullied body of water and no matter how much positive PR the people at Lake Erie HQ pump out, we will not be wading in the waters of that disgusting dump.

To abstain from swimming in Lake Erie is a positively logical conclusion based on the deep evolutionary processes we have developed during humanity’s brief stint on earth. We have a natural aversion to bodies of water that make us sick. Just as we have a deep aversion to the smell of rotting meat to help keep us healthy, we have a protective aversion to any body of water that might be deadly. The thought of a polluted water source stirs something deep, and it doesn’t go away. When it comes to life and death and polluted water, there is no forgive and forget.

So even if—and that’s a big if—Lake Erie is now just as fine to swim in as Lake Michigan or Lake Superior, it’s too sullied by its reputation. The images of brown and red water polluted beyond belief and ready to ignite are too rattling and too gross. We have our heads but we also have our gut, and our gut tells us Lake Erie is unhealthy, and we should always trust our gut.

In the broadest sense, refusing a swim in Lake Erie is a conservative position or impulse. To be conservative in a pre-political sense means to be protective of the current order which ensures safety and to be cautious with risks which carry unknown externalities or possible problems. To foolishly adopt a new approach while ignoring history is the opposite of this wise conservative impulse which does, more often than not, keep you alive longer than the opposite.

So the Lake Erie lover argues that his lake is great while the Lake Erie sceptic believes it can’t be fixed. As for the actual truth, both are kind of right.

Lake Erie is, indeed, no longer classified as a dead lake like it once was when orange and brown polyester blanketed the land. Today, walleye abound in the shallowest of the Great Lakes. In fact, 50% of all Great Lakes fish are found in Lake Erie, and it’s well known among anglers for its great fishing today. In 2026 the good people at the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services assure us that it is safe to eat the fish we catch from Lake Erie.

But it’s also still the most polluted of the Great Lakes. The legacy of chemical dumping and agricultural runoff lingers. There are bad algal blooms that afflict the lake generally and most particularly the Maumee River watershed. And, last but not least, Lake Erie has one of the highest concentrations of microplastics in the entire world.

Not great.

How you feel about Lake Erie and how likely you are to take a full-fledged dip into Lake Erie depends on your perspective. Do you want to see the positive developments and better water quality or do you want to see the disturbing lingering legacy of a polluted past? I suppose there’s a lot of things in life like that.

The truth is I understand the Lake Erie lover battling through the waves on the beach in Monroe. There were many when I was there. It’s a Great Lake and it’s not generally harmful to enter.

Standing on the shore near a massive pile of seaweed I considered wading further into that murky water, but I couldn’t do it. I didn’t want to do it. I trusted my gut and decided I would leave the swimming to the people of the place who are, rightfully and understandably, thankful it’s not like it once was. And despite the threat of algal blooms, the industrial surroundings, and the somewhat ominous and dystopian billowing smokestacks rising in the distance, there was something beautiful or at least honest about the hundreds of gleeful swimmers in Lake Erie on a scorching day in July. It’s the only lake they’ve got and they’re going to swim in it.

All poetic reflections on the nature of humans and our universal desire to have fun in the summer no matter where we might find ourselves aside, I am still a conservative and, thusly, a Lake Erie skeptic from the northwestern shores of a thankfully less polluted Lake Michigan. For me, my parents, and everyone I know, Lake Erie was, is, and forever will be, a bridge too far. History matters and its history is too damning for us from the western coast.