Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo swam in the Seine River on July 17.Abdul Saboor/Reuters
Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo has taken a much-delayed dip in the Seine River to help alleviate concerns that the water will be too polluted to hold swimming competitions during the Olympics, which begin next week.
Decked out in a wet suit and wearing goggles, Hidalgo climbed into the water Wednesday morning from a floating dock in central Paris. She swam across to a platform on the other side and then treaded water for a while before climbing out. Hidalgo was accompanied by the president of the Paris Games organizing committee, Tony Estanguet, as well as pair of city officials.
Dozens of other swimmers hopped into the water after the mayor including selected journalists, celebrities, and members of the public.
“It was magnificent,” Hidalgo said after her swim. “The water is very, very good, a little bit cool but not that much.”
The Seine will play host to the opening ceremony next Friday, which will include a flotilla of nearly 100 boats carrying thousands of athletes. It’s also the venue for marathon swimming and the swimming legs of the triathlon and paratriathlon.Abdul Saboor/Reuters
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She added that the city still planned to lift a 100-year ban on swimming in the river and open sections of it up to the public next summer as part of the legacy of the Games. “Imagine in a year’s time, a bathing site here, a swimming pool, with all those who can and will come to swim. The Games have been the driving force. But we’re doing it because we need to adapt our cities to climate change,” she said.
As for the Olympics, Estanguet declared; “We are now ready to organize the Games in the Seine.”
The Seine is set to take centre stage during the Olympics, but it has long history as one Europe’s most polluted waterways and there have been concerns for months about the quality of the water.
The river will play host to the opening ceremony next Friday, which will include a flotilla of nearly 100 boats carrying thousands of athletes. It’s also the venue for marathon swimming and the swimming legs of the triathlon and paratriathlon.
An environmental group called Surfrider Foundation has been regularly testing the water for E. coli and enterococci, an intestinal bacteria. In spring, the organization said that only one of result in the previous seven months had come up satisfactory.
A local resident dives in the Seine, in Paris, on July 17, after the mayor of Paris went for a swim in the river to demonstrate that it is clean enough to host the outdoor swimming events at the Paris Olympics later this month.JULIEN DE ROSA/Getty Images
Much of the increased bacteria level was because of rainy weather this spring, which overwhelmed treatment centres and caused contaminated rainwater to run off from farm fields and other areas along the riverbank. The levels got so high in May and June that Hidalgo had to postpone her planned swim and French open-water swimmers cancelled a practice session in the river.
The rain has subsided in recent weeks and Surfrider said that the results from its most recent samples, taken on June 26, met safety standards for the competitions.
Last week city officials also said their testing showed that the water quality had improved in July. “In the last 12 days, we’ve had 11 or 10 days where the Seine was clean enough to swim,” deputy mayor Pierre Rabadan told French radio. “I’m not saying we’re very serene, given the weather, but we’re not worried about being able to hold the competitions.”
French authorities have invested €1.4-billion ($2.1-billion) on a variety of clean-up initiatives. One of the biggest is a new rainwater-retention basin that’s capable of collecting 50,000 cubic metres of water, or roughly 20 Olympic-sized pools. The basin is designed to collect excess rainwater so that it can go to the treatment centre directly, rather than spill over into the river.
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Swimming in the river was banned in 1923 mainly because of the dangers posed by boat traffic. People continued to bathe in a few places up until the 1970s, when pollution levels presented too much of a health risk. By the nineties, nearly all the river’s fish species had died and even the hardiest of swimmers avoided the water.
However, environmental scientists say the Seine has made a comeback in recent decades. Several water-treatment plants have been built and industrial pollution has decreased sharply.
The river now has 120 fish species, including salmon and sea trout, according to Le GIP Seine-Aval, a research team that has been studying the estuary for the past 20 years.
“Every time I meet someone, they worry that I’m going to swim in the Seine,” French triathlete Léonie Périault told The Associated Press recently. “But I’ve been swimming in this river for several years now. In youth competitions, we swam regularly in the Seine and never had problems.”
Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo took a dip in the French capital's River Seine on July 17, ahead of Olympic events being held in the famed river despite concerns about water quality.
Reuters