After two attempts to hold a public swim in the Baltimore harbor last year were cancelled due to persistent rain, organizers plan to try something different this summer.

Instead of hosting their swim event on a single day, organizers with the Waterfront Partnership said Monday that they will stage Harbor Splash as “a series of pop-ups,” with event dates announced about a week in advance.

The swims will take place at the same spot as previous years, at the Bond Street Wharf in Fells Point, with the Waterfront Partnership accepting reservations on a rolling basis. Residents can sign up for updates and priority access through the organization’s Harbor Splash newsletter.

Recent summers have seen Harbor Splash sell out in a matter of minutes — a sign to organizers of Baltimore’s enthusiasm for the idea.

Advertise with us

“At the same time, we’ve learned that flexibility is key,” Dan Taylor, the Waterfront Partnership’s president, said in a statement announcing the new approach. “This new format allows us to adapt to changing conditions while expanding access for people to safely experience the water.”

The downtown booster group has pushed for more than 15 years to establish a swimmable harbor in Baltimore, even teasing the possibility for a permanent, roped-off swim area in the last year.

At an inaugural swim in June of 2024, Mayor Brandon Scott and other top officials joined some 150 people who jumped into the water at Fells Point. Around 200 people signed up to participate last summer before storms dashed their plans.

Adam Lindquist, the vice president of the Waterfront Partnership, said organizers aren’t sure yet how much demand to expect for these pop-ups, but he hopes that each could draw crowds as big as the single-day attempts of years past.

Baltimore has made headway curbing harbor pollution over the last two decades, particularly through investments in the regional wastewater system.

Advertise with us

Still, some environmentalists, like those with the water quality watchdog group Blue Water Baltimore, have expressed skepticism that the harbor is ready for swimming.

The city continues to struggle with sewage overflows and stormwater run-off, and water quality tends to dip dramatically after heavy rains.

Shortly after last summer’s initial Harbor Splash date, Lindquist flew to the Netherlands for the 2025 Swimmable Cities Summit, where he heard from officials behind the internationally heralded swim sites on the Seine River in Paris.

Closer to home, advocates have pushed for years for a sanctioned swim in the Anacostia River, where swimming has been outlawed since the early 1970s, but storms have repeatedly delayed their event.

Last week, not far from the Waterfront Partnership’s swim site in Fells Point, the group debuted new water testing technology that they hope will make it easier to gauge the safety of jumping into the harbor in real time.