A concerning series of accidents and near-accidents in the waters of our state’s ponds, lakes and beaches this summer has highlighted the need for improved attention to water safety by members of the public — and by the entities in Maine that should step up and take responsibility for it.

Our state’s oceanic nature and its abundant access to inviting bodies of water are among its best assets; it’s time to take bold steps to ensure that their enjoyment is maximized at minimal personal risk. Although raising awareness about the dangers of currents, tides, cold water and other variables is well and good, the official emphasis needs to be on teaching swimming, water safety skills and the ready availability of lessons.

In all, according to one national survey, 55% of Americans have never had a swimming lesson.

Deaths by drowning have been on the rise in the U.S since the COVID-19 pandemic. Before that, for successive decades, they had been falling. According to a May 2024 report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the highest death rates were “among children aged 1-4 years, non-Hispanic American Indian and Alaska Native persons, and non-Hispanic Black or African American persons.”

The pandemic both drove people to the great outdoors and made opportunities for supervised swimming, to say nothing of lessons, very scarce. For anybody already having a challenging time affording or getting to a lesson, the path became steeper still. This is a painful fact; we know that swimming lessons are effective, even for the very, very young. According to the National Institutes of Health, formal lessons can result in an 88% reduction in drowning risk for children aged between 1 and 4.

The pandemic also weakened participation in swimming at school. As we reported back in December, some of Maine’s biggest high schools are now in co-op teams, a response to a dwindling numbers of swimmers. One coach interviewed noted that traditional “feeder programs,” like efforts by local YMCAs or community centers, just weren’t generating swimmers like they used to.

In light of ongoing trends and recent tragedies, Maine should take it upon itself to do more to support a confident, calm relationship between people and water — and it should start early. In parts of the world, swimming instruction is compulsory in elementary school. While no U.S. state has taken it on itself to bring in such a mandate (some have successfully established voucher programs for lessons and related statewide initiatives), would it not be magnificent if Maine were to become the first?

One of this paper’s more uplifting pieces of sports writing in recent years was published the year prior (“Cultural immersion takes on deeper meaning for South Portland High swim team,” March 12, 2023). Glenn Jordan’s profile of members of the South Portland High swim team who grew up in Central Africa — many of them without learning to swim — took care to highlight swimming’s barriers to entry and the role that local teams and enterprising initiatives can play in lifting those barriers. 

Talk about a “feeder program.” South Portland community members gave of their time to teach interested students and offer rides to the pool. Community donations came through on caps, swimsuits and towels. Scholarship funding from the city was drawn down for the free lessons.

If this “feel-good” snapshot registers to you as a little bit miraculous, know that it is. Not every school district in Maine can pull something like this off. Indeed, very few have decent community pools to begin with.

In an excellent op-ed in these pages in 2024, Carolyn Fernald, a former collegiate swimmer and the mother of a competitive swimmer in Portland, lamented the pitiful state of the public pools in Maine’s biggest city. 

“It’s long past time for Portland and its community organizations to prioritize access to aquatics facilities,” Fernald wrote. “A city that is surrounded by water should offer year-round programming to provide water safety instruction for children and adults. We should look at every drowning-related death in our community as an abdication of public safety.”

A state that is rich in water should undertake to do the very same.