French charity sounds alarm over poor water quality in the Seine ahead of Olympics
A French water charity sounded the alarm on Monday about pollution in the river Seine just over 100 days before the start of the summer Olympics when it is set to be used for swimming events.
Surfrider Foundation said it had analysed six months of tests over winter undertaken by a laboratory and had concluded that the river water remained polluted and potentially dangerous.
In an open letter, the Biarritzbased charity said it “wanted to share with stakeholders its rising concerns about the quality of the Seine but also the risks faced by athletes moving in contaminated water.”
Paris authorities are in a race against time to clean up the Seine before the start of the Olympics on July 26, with the famed waterway set to play a starring role during the Games. It is expected to host the opening ceremony, and will then be used for the marathon swimming events and the triathlon — pollution permitting.
Cleaning up the Seine has been promoted as one the key legacy achievements of the Paris 2024 Games, with Mayor Anne Hidalgo intending to create three public bathing areas in the river next year.
She and President Emmanuel Macron have also promised to take a dip before the Games to demonstrate it is safe — just over a century since public swimming was banned there in 1923. Around €1.4 billion has been spent upgrading sewage and storm water treatment facilities to reduce the amount of untreated faecal matter flowing into the river and its main tributary, the Marne.
Marc Guillaume, the top state security official for Paris, attacked Surfrider’s “very poor knowledge of this issue”, adding: “There’s no point doing tests today in the Seine and comparing them with what will happen next summer.”
Bacteria present
European water quality standards and the international triathlon and openwater swimming federations set limits on the concentration of two bacteria — E. Coli and enterococci — which are indicators of the presence of faecal matter.
Overall, the testing had shown “alarming” levels often double and sometimes threetimes higher than the maximum permitted amounts. One reading showed E.Coli at seven times the maximum level,
Surfrider said. Paris authorities stressed that the samples were taken over the winter period — and one of the wettest winters in 30 years. Heavy rainfall is known to overwhelm Paris’s more than a centuryold sewage system, leading to direct discharges of untreated effluent into the river.
Three Olympic test events in the Seine were cancelled last July and August due to elevated E. Coli readings. The disruption was blamed on very heavy rainfall and a faulty sewer valve which led to dirty water being discharged into the river. Last month, Brazilian swimmer Ana Marcela Cunha, the reigning Olympic open water champion, called on Paris to have a plan B in case the Seine was not ready.
Organisers say they are able to delay the swimming events in the event of heavy rainfall, but they do not intend to move them.