Paris’s bold Olympic promise to clean the River Seine.
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A key promise in Paris’s bid to host the 2024 Summer Olympics was that its famous river, the Seine, would be cleaned up in time to host open water swimming events: the triathlon, para triathlon, and marathon swimming. But swimming has been banned in the Seine for a century because the Paris sewer system is designed to dump wastewater into the river during heavy rain, when the sewers get overwhelmed by stormwater.
When that happens, levels of E. coli, a bacteria associated with fecal matter, spike in the river, making it too contaminated to swim in. In order to make good on its promise to clean the river, Paris officials took on a $1.5 billion USD infrastructure project that includes a massive underground tank and tunnel system meant to hold excess sewage during heavy rain and prevent further contamination of the Seine.
Water quality testing will be done daily ahead of the Olympic games this summer, and Paris officials are hopeful their ambitious plan to host swimming in the famously polluted river will succeed.
Follow the daily water quality tests of the Seine from the City of Paris here:
Check out some of the data used in this video, along with additional water quality tests, from Fluidion:
Are Olympians Going to Swim in Poop Water? – The Cut
Will the Seine be ready for Olympic swimming? Paris officials ‘confident.’ – Washington Post
Paris looking at Plan B if River Seine remains unfit for Olympic swimming – Global News
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