A Brooklyn swimmer made the first known swim across the mouth of the New York Harbor Wednesday in support of keeping the waters around New York and New Jersey pollution-free.
Open water swimmer Patricia Sener made the historic 17-mile crossing from Sandy Hook to Atlantic Beach, Long Island in 11 hours, 8 minutes and 35 seconds according to Alan Morrison, a crew member who followed her in a boat.
Morrison said Sener, who is executive director of Coney Island Brighton Beach Open Water Swimmers, passed with 400 yards of spouting whales and described her as "tired, very sore, but in good spirits."
Sener is the first known person to make the swim across the mouth of the harbor.
She said it was a spur of the moment decision to support the concept of a "Clean Ocean Zone" that the environmental group Clean Ocean Action is trying to get through Congress. If established, the Clean Ocean Zone would make the New York - New Jersey Bight the nation's first pollution-free ocean area where oil and gas production, new sewage and pollution sources and other harmful industrial uses of the ocean would be locked out, according to COA.
The swimmer said she is especially concerned about plans to build a liquefied natural gas facility off Long Island known as Port Ambrose.
