Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo said she is confident about the quality of the water Seine River will be till olympics standard this summer — and she’ll likely be able to prove it by swimming there with President Emmanuel Macron.
The Seine is the venue for marathon swimming and the swimming phase of Olympic and Paralympic triathlons at the Games.
Asked Tuesday if she would keep her promise to swim in the Seine before the Games, Hidalgo said, “Definitely, because the water quality will be good.”
For decades, the Seine was too toxic for most fish and swimmers to be useful primarily as a waterway for the transport of goods and people or as a watery grave for discarded bicycles and other trash. With a few exceptions, swimming in the Seine has been illegal since 1923.
Hidalgo mentioned new facilities built specifically to clean up the river, whose water quality was recently criticized by an environmental group.
A water treatment plant was inaugurated on Tuesday in Champigny-sur-Marne, east of Paris.
Next week will see the official opening of a huge storage basin, which aims to reduce the need to dump untreated bacteria-laden waste water into the Seine when it rains. The giant pit dug next to Paris’ Austerlitz train station will contain the equivalent of 20 Olympic swimming pools’ worth of dirty water which will now be treated instead of being discharged into the river through storm drains.
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Hildago said he had invited top officials to swim in the Seine in an event called “The Big Dive” to be held in late June or early July. He confirmed that Macron, who promised to swim in the river himself, has been invited, as well as Paris Olympics organizers and IOC President Thomas Bach.
“We’re going to dive into the scene, and many volunteers have already come forward to dive with me and all the athletes that are there,” Hidalgo said. “We will all be safe to swim in the Seine.”
Paris regional prefect Marc Guillaume earlier this month rejected a recent NGO report about poor water quality, saying it was based on testing during winter, when no one was swimming in the Seine.
The water quality should be good enough for swimming during the Games and in the summer from 2025, as the city plans to open some areas to the public. However, swimming outside the season will remain illegal.
Seine cleanup efforts are estimated to cost 1.4 billion euros ($1.5 billion), paid for by state and local authorities.
Guillaume said regular water testing would begin June 1 when all the new treatment facilities become operational. He elaborated that during the Olympics, the water will be tested at 3 a.m. each day to determine whether the events can be held as planned.
Olympic organizers said if pollution levels got too high, the events could be rescheduled and, in a worst-case scenario, the swimming segment of the triathlon would be cancelled.
In a recent report, after monitoring bacteria levels for more than six months, the Surfrider Foundation called the Seine a “particularly polluted place”. The group concluded that athletes would “swim in polluted water and pose significant risks to their health.”
The Paris mayor’s press conference on Tuesday was aimed at unveiling the cultural and sports festivals to be held at 26 sites across Paris during the summer.
“We’re working together to make sure the party is beautiful,” Hidalgo said. He said security is the top concern of officials.
About 30,000 police officers are expected to be deployed every day during the Games, with 45,000 of them on scene during the opening ceremony.
Hidalgo said, “We work with a great deal of professionalism and determination so that there is never a safety issue that hinders our freedom to be able to live together.”
© 2024 The Canadian Press