Want to take a dip in Paris? River Seine reopens to public swimming for first time in a century
Want to take a dip in Paris? River Seine reopens to public swimming for first time in a century
For the first time in over a century, Parisians and tourists are getting ready to take a refreshing dip in the Seine.
For the first time in over a century, Parisians and tourists will be able to take a refreshing dip in the River Seine. The long-polluted waterway is finally opening up as a summertime swim spot following a 1.4 billion euro ($1.5 billion) cleanup project that made it suitable for Olympic competitions last year.
Three new swimming sites on the Paris riverbank will open on Saturday — one close to Paris’ Notre Dame Cathedral, another near the Eiffel Tower and a third in eastern Paris.
Swimming in the Seine has been illegal since 1923, with a few exceptions, due to pollution and risks posed by river navigation. Taking a dip outside bathing areas is still banned for safety reasons.
Great to see the Seine finally reopened for swimming after a century! A €1.4B investment in clean water and public access is a win for both the environment and city life. Hope other major cities follow Paris’s lead.
It's controlled every day and closed if there's any danger, for example after heavy rains bringing more pollution than usual. They have started finding different forms of life that only happen in very clean waters, it's pretty cool. One of the few positive ecological news lately.
Still wouldn't trust it.
It's been a poop river for hundreds of years and they haven't separated out sewer from storm water yet.
I think it's mediagenic enough that journalists and other organizations probably tried to do their own tests and found nothing suspicious that wasn't officially announced.
By the Olympic Games 2024, the work to improve the infrastructure to prevent pollution already costed 1.4 billions of euros. I guess additional infrastructure for exceptional meteorological events was just too much to be justified.
If the water is tested every day of the opened swimming season, there's no reason to worry.
It's been in the work for quite a while. The mayor of Paris announced that the seine will be open for swimming in 5 years ... In 1988.
So it took a bit longer than planned, almost 50 years instead of 5 but the fact that they are opening it now is the result of these 50 years of continuous improvement.
And this is why while while everyone was bitching about how much money this will cost i was just thinking about how nice it will be when you can finally swim in it again. Of course there is a lot of long term infrastructure that needs to be built so big rains dont flush all the shit into it but still good news. It was also smart of the mayor to do this "for" the olympics.
Friends with a pool had a sign saying "don't pee in our pool, we don't swim in your toilet". In Paris however...
I assume embarrassment on the world stage helped move this along given the Olympics?
Who knew anything good could result from the Olympics
Really hilariously stupid that it took a goddamn sporting event for them to even try to clean up this river