If you fly in or out of Dallas Love Field, you’ll notice a little lake next to the runway — that’s Bachman. And if you’re a Dallasite, you’ve likely heard about its water quality. Swimming in it has been banned since the 1950s for many reasons, including unsafe levels of E. coli bacteria. While swimming was banned, rowing was not. And that’s why, for me, Bachman Lake is deeply personal: For four years, I rowed across its contaminated waters.

When, in my first year of high school at the Hockaday School, I first felt the rush of the boat surge beneath me and the feeling of moving with the water, I was hooked. My passion for this sport led me to cover as many meters on the water as possible and to pursue rowing collegiately. This summer, I completed my third year rowing on Stanford University’s Division-1 Lightweight Rowing team and my seventh year of rowing altogether.

But, due to the unsafe waters at Bachman Lake, practicing the sport I loved meant exposing myself to unnecessary risks. When you’re rowing, you have a non-zero chance of flipping out of the boat. Any rower who claims they have never flipped is either stretching the truth or hasn’t rowed very much. Even if you manage to keep your body in the boat, when you’re rowing and breathing hard, your mouth may be open. And the other rowers in your boat will inevitably splash water on you — sometimes, unfortunately, right into your mouth.

I can personally attest to this: There have been more rows than I can count where I stepped onto the dock after finishing, drenched from head to toe. Anytime I either flipped or ingested lake water, I stressed about getting sick from the water’s fecal bacteria. These pathogens can cause nausea, diarrhea, rashes and more — physical tolls that would ruin my training or, if I were in season, my racing.

And it’s not just Bachman: White Rock Lake, the more frequented Dallas lake, has also banned swimming for decades due to unsafe levels of fecal bacteria. However, unlike Bachman, White Rock attracts a constant stream of water-sport recreationists, including kayakers, paddleboarders, sailors and rowers. These enthusiasts, simply looking to enjoy their time on the water, risk exposure to harmful bacteria while engaging in the activity they love.

The issue of unsafe water extends far beyond Dallas. The Environment Texas Research and Policy Center’s recent “Safe for Swimming?” report, which compiles U.S. Environmental Protection Agency data on fecal bacteria indicators, found that 61% of U.S. beaches had potentially unsafe contamination levels in 2024. The numbers look even worse for Texas: The report discovered that 94% of its beaches posed some risk for swimmers on at least one day last year. (For determining this risk, our research partners used a fecal contamination level that the EPA associates with 32 illnesses out of every 1,000 swimmers.) How serious is this? People swimming in U.S. waters experience an estimated 90 million cases of illnesses annually — including nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, rashes and ear infections.

We can do something about this. Common sources of nasty bacteria in our waterways include stormwater runoff and sewage. Dallas experienced a sanitary sewer overflow as recently as this May. To reduce these sources of pollution, we need to improve our wastewater infrastructure, including projects that absorb stormwater before it sweeps pollutants into our local waterways.

But improving our water infrastructure will take money. Communities will need $630 billion over the next 20 years to address sewage, runoff and other forms of wastewater pollution, based on the EPA’s survey of Texas and other states.

Now is a critical time for Texas’ congressional members to secure resources for Dallas and other communities to stop this pollution. Unfortunately, Congress took a step in the wrong direction in July, when the House Appropriations Committee voted for a spending bill that includes a 26% cut to the Clean Water State Revolving Fund — the main federal program for wastewater infrastructure. However, the Senate Appropriations Committee voted to maintain the same level of funding for these program.

With Congress now on recess, we have time to convince them to continue funding to the Clean Water SRF. Take it from a lifelong Texan: Safe waterways matter, which is why I encourage you to take a minute to let your member of Congress know how much clean water means to you. From competitive water-sport athletes like me to families that want to enjoy a sunny day at the lake, we all deserve waterways that are safe for swimming.

Jordan Stock is a summer associate for Environment Texas and a Division I rower at Stanford University. A native of Dallas, she grew up rowing on Bachman Lake, running around (and occasionally rowing on) White Rock Lake and enjoying the bluebonnet season.