Almost a billion and a half euros to be able to return to swimming in the rivers Seine and Marne.
This is the goal that France wants to achieve in anticipation of the future Olympics. A bathing plan, so it was defined by the mayor of Paris, Anna Hidalgo, who wants to realize "the dream" already prefigured by Jacques Chirac at the time when he wore the sash of mayor in 1990.
Exactly one hundred years after bathing in the river was forbidden, open water swimming and triathlon competitions could mark the new step.
Once the ok has been given for bathing, the dispute between the Invalides and the Eiffel Tower will be opened for which stretch of the Seine will host the competitions.
According to Amélie Oudéa-Castéra, Minister of Sport and the Olympics, there will be four bathing establishments to open in the capital, to which sixteen more will be added in the Ile-de-France: the number and location of these "stations" will be defined "as a legacy of the Games, by the end of 2024".
The prefecture of Ile-de-France (Prif), which with the City of Paris oversees the bathing plan, aims to "eliminate by 2024 three quarters of the pollution" related to bad connections: "If we reach this goal of 75%, it must be possible to swim in the Seine".
The sine qua non condition will be the depollution of rainwater in Champigny-sur-Marne (Val-de-Marne), a town east of Paris that still housed a crowded beach until the sixties. For the small town, 45 million euros will be allocated, able to allow the retention and treatment with ultraviolet rays before the discharge into the Marne of rainwater mixed with that of discharge.
It is, in fact, precisely this water, polluted by the wastewater of about 30 thousand families, to discharge directly into the Marne and the Seine, infecting everything.
Another obligatory step is to update the Austerlitz storage basin, built near the Parisian station so that, as explained by the deputy head of the Olympic Games and the Seine, Pierre Rabadan, "the sewers do not overflow". For the development of the VL8 collector, in the south of the Parisian agglomeration, 264 million euros will be allocated.