What Doesn't Kill You Makes You Stronger? We'll See . . .

I like to paddleboard on the Raritan River, mainly as a matter of convenience, as I live only a few hundred yards from a boat launch, and though I know the water isn't pristine, I prefer not to think about what's in the sauce, and instead I enjoy the views of the New Brunswick skyline, the Rutgers crew complex, and the rugged and forested cliffs directly across from the park (not to mention the large swath of open water as the river approaches the Donald and Morris Goodkind Bridges) but now that my children are also paddleboarding on the river . . . and falling into the river, as kids are wont to do, this report scares me a bit . . . apparently, the river is full of more than savage monsters, it also contains an unhealthy amount of mercury, benzene, arsenic, oil and gas drips, toxic fertilizer, and goose feces . . . a toxic brew, which-- best case scenario-- will turn my children into radioactive superheroes, or -- more likely -- it will do some weird and awful stuff to their innards, and because we don't have a control, a Family of Dave living next to a perfectly clean unpolluted river, we'll never know the exact effect recreating on the Raritan has on my kin.