By Sophie Kaufman on SwimSwam
With less than 90 days until the 2024 Olympics, an important piece of organizers’ plans to keep the Seine river quality acceptable has fallen into place. On Thursday, organizers and Paris officials inaugurated the Austerlitz water basin — a tunnel and connected storage tank that can hold 13.2 million gallons of water, the equivalent of about 20 long course pools.
This storage tank has been in progress for three years. It is one of the crucial pieces of organizers’ 1.4 billion euro effort to clean up the Seine. That’s because the Paris sewer system carries both rain and wastewater. When the system gets overloaded–like it does about 12 times a year according to Samuel Colin-Canivez, the city’s lead engineer for the sewage projects–all the water releases into the Seine.
The goal with the newly inaugurated Austerlitz water basin is to prevent (or delay) the sewer system getting overwhelmed. The tank should also allow them to treat the collected water so it will be less harmful if it does get released.
The iconic river is slated to host open water and triathlon events at the Olympic and Paralympic Games this summer.
The river clean up has come with challenges. Last summer, swimming test events were cancelled due to poor water quality. Surfrider Foundation Europe, a French charity, reported in April that there were still “alarming” levels of E.coli and enterococci in the Seine.
Despite these obstacles as well as the March flood, Paris organizers remain optimistic that the Seine will host Olympic events. Tony Estanguet, president of the Paris 2024 organizing committee, reiterated last month that there is no “plan B” location if the Seine’s water quality is poor, despite pressure from Tokyo 10K Olympic champion Ana Marcela Cunha.
“We are on time,” the prefect of the Paris region, Marc Guillaume, said at the Austerlitz water basin’s inauguration. “The beginning of the Games will coincide with water quality allowing competition. That’s a tremendous collective success.”
Opening the Austerlitz water basin is the latest step in organizers’ plan for a cleaner river. Its opening comes on the heels of opening of a water treatment plant last month in Campigny-sur-Marne, east of Paris. But since at least 2023, organizers have known that high rainfall could derail their plans even with an operational basin.
According to AP, the Seine’s water will be tested every day at 3 a.m. each day to determine whether events can proceed as planned. Organizers have said the contingency plan for poor water quality is to delay events a few days then try again.
While the main impetus for cleaning the Seine is the Olympics, organizers and Paris officials plan for the effort’s legacy to extend beyond the Games. Mayor Anne Hidalgo–who has promised to swim in the Seine ahead of the Games–wants to open the river to the public. Swimming in the river has been banned for a hundred years, but Paris officials are planning to open several public swimming sites along the banks of the river beginning in 2025.
SwimSwam: Paris Officials Open Austerlitz Water Tank, A Crucial Piece of the Seine River Clean Up Plan
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