For its 2024 Olympics, Paris wants the Seine river swimmable

Record ID: 1728652

  • Title: For its 2024 Olympics, Paris wants the Seine river swimmable
  • Date: 5th June 2023
  • Summary: PARIS, FRANCE (MAY 31, 2023) (REUTERS) ALEXANDRE III BRIDGE ABOVE SEINE RIVER WITH EIFFEL TOWER IN BACKGROUND SEINE WATER
  • Embargoed: 19th June 2023 11:14
  • Keywords: Marne river Olympic Games Paris 2024 Seine river biodiversity fish pollution
  • Location: PARIS, SEVRES, JOINVILLE-LE-PONT, NEUILLY-PLAISANCE AND NOISY-LE-GRAND, FRANCE / GRAPHICS
  • City: PARIS, SEVRES, JOINVILLE-LE-PONT, NEUILLY-PLAISANCE AND NOISY-LE-GRAND, FRANCE / GRAPHICS
  • Country: France
  • Topics: Europe,Olympics,Sport,Editors' Choice
  • Reuters ID: LVA001510025052023RP1
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: On a sunny spring day, Dan Angelescu was testing the water quality of Paris' Seine river by the bridge Alexander III - a scenic view for next year's swimming marathon and triathlon Olympic trials.
    Angelescu has been working for the city since 2017 on its longtime project to make the Seine swimmable. The 2024 Games are a good opportunity to fast-track it in order to host some sporting events in the famous river - as was done at the first Paris Olympics of 1900.
    That day, concentration levels for two bacteria, E.coli and Enterococcus, both indicators of fecal material in the water, were low enough to safely bathe in the river according to Angelescu. The challenge is to maintain those levels.
    "It really depends on the weather because the biggest polluter of the Seine River are the big rain events which bring a lot of untreated sewage in the water through combined sewer overflows," Angelescu said.
    "Therefore, when it rains, afterwards, the water quality can really be really bad for a certain number of days.”
    To avoid this happening next summer, the city is building a massive underground basin in the south of Paris, with a 50,000 cubic meters capacity - about the equivalent of 20 Olympic pools. The Austerlitz basin will collect rainfall to avoid the overflow, said Pierre Rabadan, deputy mayor in charge of the Games' organization.
    "If there were torrential rain for several days, we could have a water quality problem," Rabadan said, but added he was confident the basin would prevent that from happening.
    Another part of the plan is to complete the switch of some homes upstream from an antiquated set-up discharging wastewater into the river to a brand new connection to the sewer system.
    Stephane Vidalie, who lives in Neuilly-Plaisance in the east of Paris, was happy to no longer send wastewater into the Marne river, a tributary that joins the Seine just outside Paris.
    "As a citizen, it matters to know that we are no longer contributing to the pollution of the waterways," said Vidalie. "Now ... (it goes) through the water treatment plants, as it should have for quite a while."
    Paris hopes to reap the benefits beyond the Olympics. Colombe Brossel, another deputy mayor in charge of public space and waste reduction, said the main goal was for people along the Seine to be able to swim in it by 2025, as an Olympics "inheritance."
    Bastien Coignon, a member of a kayak club in Sevres, west of Paris, said he had been waiting for this.
    "For us, it's actually more pleasant, it's great. We dreamt of that for years, to be rid of all this trash, of all this wastewater that end up in the Seine."
    (Production: Manuel Ausloos, Clotaire Achi, Noemie Olive, Louise Dalmasso)
  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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