Two months before departure, the Seine remains impassable – Firstpost

Water tests in the Seine in Paris show the river is still too dirty for swimming, two months before the start of the Paris Olympics, when it is expected to be used by athletes, data showed on Wednesday. ‘charitable organisation.

French authorities have embarked on a race against time to clean up the Seine, which is due to host the swimming portion of the triathlon at the end of July as well as open water swimming in August.

Water charity Surfrider regularly carries out tests to measure levels of two crucial bacteria which indicate the presence of faecal matter.

His latest results showed levels of E. coli and enterococci above the authorized levels set by sports federations and European swimming standards.

An E.Coli reading at the Alexandre III bridge was more than three times higher than the maximum level allowed by the triathlon and open water swimming federations.

Heavy rainfall in May likely contributed to what Surfrider calls “poor” water quality.

He noted that there had been heavy rain 36 hours before testing, but only light rain in the previous 12 hours.

Heavy rains are known to overwhelm Paris’s sewer system, which is more than a century old, leading to direct discharges of untreated effluent into the river.

Organizers are praying for good weather during the Olympics from July 26 to August 11 and have been open to the possibility of having to delay or even cancel swimming in the Seine in the event of a storm.

New infrastructure

If a new water treatment plant was inaugurated at the end of April in Champigny-sur-Marne upstream of Paris, another major hydraulic infrastructure project linked to the Olympics has not yet come into service.

A giant new underground rainwater treatment facility near Austerlitz train station in eastern Paris, which will store water to prevent discharge into the river, is expected to come into operation at the start of June.

Cleaning the Seine was “probably the most difficult (Olympic) project to organize,” Emmanuel Grégoire, deputy mayor of Paris, told the press in April.

Around 1.4 billion euros ($1.5 billion) have been spent by French authorities to upgrade wastewater and stormwater treatment facilities around Paris to reduce the amount of untreated fecal matter s flowing into the river and its main tributary, the Marne.

Cleaning up the Seine has been touted as one of the key legacies of the Paris 2024 Games, with Mayor Anne Hidalgo aiming to create three public swimming areas in the river next year.

She and President Emmanuel Macron also promised to swim before the Games to demonstrate it was safe, with Hidalgo planning to swim on June 23, according to sources.

Olympic open water swimming has been hit by pollution issues in the past, including in Rio in 2016 and Tokyo in 2021.