The goal of the Swimmable Charles Initiative is to bring public swimming back to the Charles River. Swimming in the Charles River was a popular form of recreation until the mid 1950s, when growing awareness of river pollution caused the state’s park agency (the MDC at the time) to close the river’s public beaches. Since then hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent to clean up the river and the CRC believes it is time for the public to start to receive some of the benefits of this project by being allowed to swim in the river once again.