The Seine must still respect safety standards – DW

Pollution levels in the Seine in Paris remain well above what is permitted for swimming, according to a water quality report released Friday.

The report, completed last week and published by Paris city hall, comes less than a month before the Olympics, during which the French capital’s iconic waterway is expected to see athletes take to the waters for swimming events.

“Water quality continues to be impaired due to unfavorable hydrological conditions – precipitation, high flow velocity, low solar radiation, temperatures below seasonal normal and pollution in the upper reaches of the river,” the report said .

Is everyone welcome at the Paris Olympics?

To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video.

What is the level of contamination?

Data showed that bacteria such as enterococci and E. coli remained well above legal limits at all four testing sites along the river on Sunday.

At the Alexandre III Bridge, one of the sites of the triathlon swimming event, enterococci exceeded the concentration of 1000 colony forming units (CFU)/100 ml on Sunday. This is more than double the limit of 400 CFU/100 ml set by European legislation. The concentration of E. coli was also almost four times higher than allowed.

French authorities have invested 1.4 billion euros ($1.5 billion) in wastewater treatment plants and a sewage system in the Paris region. The French capital is trying to clean the Seine so people can swim in it again, as it did during the 1900 Paris Olympics.

Paris cleans the Seine for the Olympic Games

To view this video, please enable JavaScript and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video.

The city hopes for better weather

Paris City Hall said on its website that water pollution levels increase during periods of heavy rain, as has been the case in recent weeks.

According to city officials, when temperatures are higher and water levels are lower, viruses and bacteria that cause diseases can decompose more quickly, which is why they are now hoping for better weather.

“We had a period of historic rainfall in May and a lot of rainfall in June. But that didn’t worry us because we knew that with a significant improvement in weather conditions we would return to summer levels,” Pierre Rabadan, Paris’ deputy mayor for sport and the Olympics, told Reuters news agency.

dh/rm (dpa, Reuters)