Achi news desk-
Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo said she is confident the water quality in the River Seine will reach Olympic standards this summer – and that she will be able to prove it by swimming there, possibly alongside President Emmanuel Macron.
The Seine is the location for marathon swimming at the Games and the swimming leg of the Olympic and Paralympic triathlons.
Asked on Tuesday if she will fulfill her promise to swim in the Seine before the Games, Hidalgo said “for sure, because the water quality will be good.”
For decades, the Seine was too toxic for most fish and swimmers, useful mainly as a waterway to transport goods and people or as a watery grave for discarded bicycles and other rubbish. Swimming in the Seine has, with some exceptions, been illegal since 1923.
Hidalgo mentioned new facilities specially built to clean the river, whose water quality was recently denounced by an environmental group.
A water treatment plant in Champigny-sur-Marne, east of Paris, was opened on Tuesday.
Next week a huge storage basin will be officially opened to reduce the need to dump bacteria-laden waste water untreated into the Seine when it rains. The giant hole dug next to Paris’ Austerlitz train station will hold the equivalent of 20 Olympic swimming pools of dirty water which will now be treated rather than being spat out raw through storm drains into the a river
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Hildago said she had invited top officials to swim in the Seine in an event called “the big swim” to be held in late June or early July. Macron, who promised himself to swim in the river, has been invited, he confirmed, as well as the organizers of the Paris Olympic Games and the president of the IOC Thomas Bach.
“We are going to dive into the Seine, and many volunteers have already come forward to come and dive with me and all the athletes who will be there,” said Hidalgo. “We will all be safe to swim in the Seine.”
Earlier this month, Marc Guillaume, the Paris regional official, dismissed a recent NGO report on poor water quality, saying it was based on tests during the winter, when no one was swimming in the Seine.
Water quality must be good enough for swimming during the Games and, from 2025, in the summer, because the city plans to open some areas to the public. However, swimming out of season will remain illegal.
Seine cleanup efforts are estimated to cost 1.4 billion euros ($1.5 billion), paid for by the state and local authorities.
Guillaume said routine water testing will begin on June 1 when all new treatment facilities are operational. During the Olympic Games, water will be tested at 3 am every day and decide whether events should be held as planned, he detailed.
Olympic organizers said that if pollution levels were too high, events could be rescheduled and in the worst case scenario, the swimming section of the triathlon would be cancelled.
In a recent report, the Surfrider Foundation called the Seine “a particularly polluted spot” after it monitored bacteria levels for over six months. The group concluded that athletes “swim in polluted water and take significant risks to their health.”
The Paris mayor’s news conference on Tuesday was due to unveil cultural and sporting celebrations to be held at 26 sites across Paris during the summer.
“We work together to make sure the party is beautiful,” said Hidalgo, adding that security is the main concern of the authorities.
Around 30,000 police officers are expected to be deployed each day during the Games, with 45,000 working during the opening ceremony on the Seine.
“We work … with a lot of professionalism and determination so that the issue of security will never, ever come to stop our freedom to be able to live together,” Hidalgo said.
& copy 2024 The Canadian Press
