At the end of last August, the holding of pre-Olympic triathlon test events was prevented by pollution of the Seine, caused by the malfunction of a valve in the Parisian sanitation network. The river will be monitored even more closely, in particular its sanitation networks but also the connections of boats and barges, the Paris City Hall and the Ile-de-France prefecture (Prif) announced Tuesday in a press release. .
“The progress of the tests underlined the need to strengthen monitoring, control and alert systems to limit any risk of unexpected discharge into the Seine in dry weather,” they wrote after a meeting on the test events. pre-summer Olympics. The valve at the Tolbiac water treatment plant was “damaged during storms” and “became leaking”, confirmed the incident report carried out by the City of Paris services. Ten months before the Olympic Games and to prevent this type of incident, the authorities (State, town hall, Prif, departments of Seine-Saint-Denis and Val-de-Marne, waterways of France, Haropa Port, etc.) have decided to “strengthen the monitoring of sanitation networks in Paris and upstream”. (“storm overflows”, Ile-de-France sanitation: “Siapp factory outlets”, “emergency pumping installations”).
Mobilize “the actors present on the river” to address pollution
But also to look at other potential sources of pollution, “by mobilizing the actors present on the river and in the immediate vicinity”, such as boat connections or “the evacuation systems of establishments open to the public along the Seine” and “sanitary facilities along the quayside”. Teams dedicated to monitoring and capable of intervening in the event of a pollution release will also be set up.
The organizers of the Paris Olympics faced serious disappointments this summer during these test events. Before the cancellation of the two triathlon events (para and mixed), it was the open water swimming events that had to be canceled due to pollution caused by an unusual summer rain episode. These competitions in the Seine are preludes to future swimming promised for 2025 by the mayor of Paris Anne Hidalgo (PS), on three sites, while swimming has been prohibited there since 1923.