Why is Paris redoing the Seine River and what does the Olympics have to do with it?

PARIS — An electric delivery boat made its way down the Seine, past elegant former palaces and museums and under stone and metal bridges before turning at the Eiffel Tower and gliding to the riverbank.

The captain, Arnaud Montand, mapped out the planned path for the opening ceremony of the upcoming Summer Olympics and, in the last segment of his route, the path for Olympic swimmers.

A key part of the winning Paris entry was not just hosting events along the river, but within it.

“What a beautiful window on Paris,” Montand said. “But if there is a storm, everything will be cancelled.”

Workers across the Paris metropolitan area have been implementing for years what is known as the Swimming Plan, which involves thousands of underground pipes, tanks and pumps to prevent harmful bacteria from flowing into the Seine.

“Do we have a full guarantee? The answer is no,” said Pierre Rabadan, the deputy mayor who is spearheading the city’s Olympic plans, including cleaning up the Seine in time to host two long-distance races and the swimming portion of the triathlon.

However, Rabadan also noted that there was no back-up plan if the water initially fails a quality test: if the races have to be postponed, the organizers will wait a few days, test the water and try again.

Considered by many the most romantic river in the world, the Seine is also smelly and murky. During storms, sewage gushes out of 40 hatches on the paved riverbank.

That is why many Parisians are horrified by the idea of ​​diving into the river.

That was not always the case. During the first Olympics organized by Paris, in 1900, seven swimming events were held in the river.

Even after swimming in the river was banned in 1923, a year before the Games returned to the City, local residents continued to dive from the Jena Bridge on hot summer days.

Getting the chance to host the Olympics has changed everything, inspiring a budget of 1.4 billion euros (about $1.53 billion) to implement the plan.

After the Games, local residents will have access to some 20 swimming areas along the Seine.

The goal of all agencies involved is to make the water clean enough that the levels of two indicator bacteria—E. coli and intestinal enterococci—are below the standards established by the European bathing water guideline. Teams in France have been conducting regular tests of the Seine water since 2020. Last summer, around half of their samples reached the goal.

When workers ran course tests for planned Olympic events — the swimming portion of the triathlon and two men’s and women’s 10K events — over the course of two weeks in late summer, when the Olympics will take place, the results were 90 percent “acceptable,” which means the Olympic committee will decide whether to proceed.

“We are not purifying the Seine,” said Samuel Colin-Canivez, a municipal engineer, as he led a tour through a newly built tunnel. “Our approach is to prevent untreated water from being discharged into the Seine.” The 700 meter long tunnel connects to a huge underground storage tank that is under construction.

Other parts of the plan are more personal, such as teams going door-to-door in six suburban areas of Paris, trying to convince more than 20,000 homeowners to let workers dig up their pipes and reconnect them to the sewer system.

“House to house,” said Claire Costel, a city official. “There is no other way to do it”.

By: CATHERINE PORTER