Seine fit for swimming most of past 12 days, Paris says ahead of Olympics

Will the Seine be clean enough for the Olympics? City hall says yes – Copyright Japan’s Ministry of Defense/AFP Handout

The Seine has been clean enough to swim for most of the past 12 days, Paris city hall said Friday, just weeks ahead of the Olympic Games.

The quality of the water met the required standard for “11 days or 10 days” of the past 12, city hall official Pierre Rabadan told broadcaster RFI.

Weather permitting, the river will be the star of the opening ceremony of the Games on July 26 and will then host the triathlon and the swimming marathon. 

The Paris region has seen an unseasonably heavy amount of rain over recent weeks, which has raised the Seine’s pollution levels as untreated sewage is washed into the river.

“We hope the weather will get a little better, but we are not worried about the possibility of holding the competitions,” Rabadan said. “They will take place.”

He added, however, that there may have to be “modifications”, without giving details.

Weather in Paris is forecast to be mostly dry over the final 14 days before the start of the Games.

On July 4, city hall had already reported that E.Coli bacteria levels at the Olympics swimming spot in central Paris had fallen to within acceptable limits for four days.

But the previous week, levels of E.Coli — a bacteria indicating the presence of faecal matter — had been above the upper limits used by sports federations every day at the Alexandre III bridge location in central Paris, which is set to be the jumping off point for the swimming.

At one point, E.Coli levels were 10 times the upper limit of 1,000 colony-forming units per 100 millilitres (cfu/ml), with heavy rain over the previous two months leading to fears for the Olympic events.

The Seine is set to be used for the swimming leg of the triathlon on July 30-31 and August 5, as well as the open-water swimming on August 8-9.

French authorities have spent 1.4 billion euros ($1.5 billion) in the last decade trying to clean up the river by improving the Paris sewerage system, as well as building new water treatment and storage facilities.