With just over a month until the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, the Seine is still too polluted according to the latest quality samples taken in recent days. This poses many questions about the holding of the events which must take place in the river.
The weather is partly to blame for this pollution : everything hangs on the rain. THE heavy precipitation that France has experienced in recent months have indeed consequences on water pollution. They do first overflowing wastewater networks which come in particular from our toilets. This wastewater will then mix with rainwater networks and flow into the river without being treated.
Another consequence of these showers: they accelerate the flow of the Seine, which poses a risk of pollution. “You have a lot of transport of materials coming from upstream. And in there, you have pollutants,” explains Michel Riottot, honorary president of France Nature Environnement and former research director at the CNRS. “We are completely dependent on the weather”.
“For the Olympic Games, it is enough that things are good and that there are no storms during the day. That will go very well,” he nevertheless assures. But it is therefore impossible to precisely predict the rain the day before the events organized at the end of July and the beginning of August. To limit risks, the city of Paris has inaugurated in recent months retention basins intended to limit the discharge of wastewater.
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