In just over a year, the Olympic Games will take place in Paris, and for triathletes and open-water swimmers that means a course through one of the most famous rivers in the world; the Seine. But, it demands a lot of work and money to get the Seine safe to swim in.
1.4 billion Euro to be exact; that’s what the city of Paris is allocating to drastically improve the water quality of the Seine over the next year. This is necessary because swimming in the Seine has been forbidden since 1923. Reason: the water quality is so poor that it is a danger for people’s health. The biggest problem is the high presence of the E.coli bacteria: when the sewers in Paris are in danger of overflowing due to heavy rainfall, for example, they are emptied into the Seine. Of course, this is very bad for the water quality.
The city of Paris has now set itself the goal of improving the water quality of the Seine for the Olympics and is thus allocating 1.4 billion Euro for water treatment. Among other things, large basins are being dug to collect waste and rainwater so that it does not end up in the Seine. Starting in 2025, the Seine should even become accessible to recreational swimmers again – for the first time in over a hundred years.
