Degrading quality of water due to heavy rains tests Paris' readiness for Olympics

Heavy rainfall in the French capital has dwindled Paris' plans on testing the readiness for swimmers to take a dip and participate in a race in the River Seine at next year's Summer Olympics.

On Friday (4 August), a training session, that was planned for swimmers who were aiming to take part in a race this weekend in the river, was called off due to the declining water quality which dropped below acceptable standards, said the international governing body of swimming announced.

That can most likely happen when rains cause overflows of untreated waste into the Seine.

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The French government is set to spend around $1.6 billion on the Seine regeneration project.

According to the officials, the water-management projects will make the pollution issues caused by storms less frequent.

World Aquatics released a statement saying that after days of rains, “The water quality in the Seine has currently fallen below acceptable standards for safeguarding swimmers’ health,” as per AP reports.

It further said that a call on whether the Open Water Swimming World Cup, which was scheduled for Saturday and Sunday, will follow more water-quality tests.

The competition, which will be among a raft of events, has been organised to test Paris’ Olympic plans.

River Seine to be venue for marathon swimming at Games next summer

Paris' River Seine has been chosen as the venue for marathon swimming at the Games next summer.

Banned for almost 100 years due to filthy water, three Olympic and Paralympic events, triathlon, marathon swimming and Para-triathlon will take place in the river and by the year 2025, three open-air swimming areas will be accessible from the quayside.

The water quality of the river drastically declined in all these years due to industrial sewage and the sanitation demands of the growing population in the French capital.

The declining water quality affected the aquatic life to a point where in the 1960s only three species of fish were recorded in Paris.

Swimming in the Seine was banned in the year 1923.

Three swimming areas to open on the Seine

Over the last 20 years, the advancements that have been made have resulted in a sharp decline of faecal bacteria entering the river.

"But the difficulty has been in eradicating those last few percentage points to ensure it can be officially classified as clean," the BBC quoted Samuel Colin-Canivez, chief engineer for sanitation at Paris city hall as saying.

The government is now building a huge reservoir underground that will help in storing run-off in times of heavy rainfall.

"Up to now, the Seine has been the safety valve for the sewage system. If we didn't occasionally allow wastewater into the river, it would have backed up into people's homes," Colin-Canivez added.

"Now a tunnel will bring the overflow to the reservoir, where it can be stored for a day or two - the time for the system to settle down again. Then it will be drained as normal to the treatment centres," he further said.

(With inputs from agencies)

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