Bastien ohier – Hans Lucas/AFP/Getty Images
On Saturday, both Parisians and tourists were able to swim in France on the first time in more than a century. The river has been closed since 1923, when it was considered too polluted to swim safely.
While the city has been talking about cleaning up the Seine since the 1990s, the real push was in 2015, when Paris bids for the 2024 Olympics. In those nine years, enough progress was made to the point that an open water swimming competition was held on the waterway. Even Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo fell last summer, proving that the river was clean and could host competitions.
Dmitry Kostyukov – The New York Times / Redux
Dmitry Kostyukov – The New York Times / Redux
Bastien ohier – Hans Lucas/AFP/Getty Images
To ensure the river is ready, Paris invested $1.5 billion in the cleanup, known as the “Swimming Program”. therefore, More than 20,000 homes Pollution systems that previously dumped wastewater into the Seine are now integrated into the sewer system, greatly reducing the amount of pollution that penetrates into the river.
But it’s not uncertain: City officials will continue to monitor bacterial levels every day to determine if rivers can swim safely, and green and red flags will mark whether swimmers can fall. On Sunday, the river reopened for only one day The flag is red After that day’s rain, bringing bacterial levels to an unsafe point. Heavy rain will overwhelm the newly built reservoir, which can hold up to 13 million gallons of wastewater, or will directly enter the Seine.
On days with green flags, three swimming locations will allow about 1,000 visitors a day until the end of August.
Julien de Rosa – AFP/Getty Images
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