https://time.com/6261729/seine-clean-up-paris-olympics-2024/
"For residents of southeast Paris, the construction vehicles rumbling back and
forth behind the Austerlitz train station are a loud annoyance that has gone on
for too many months. But for city officials—and countless Parisians, they
hope—history is unfolding behind the cordoned-off area. After years of thwarted
ambitions and vague promises, the French capital, officials say, is set to
accomplish a rare feat for a major metropolis: making its once heavily polluted
waterway fit for swimming again.
In February, city officials invited TIME to pass through the metal turnstile
behind the cordon, and see up close the cleanup of the Seine—one of the world’s
most iconic rivers—which stretches for 481 miles, from Burgundy through Paris
out to the sea in Normandy. Indeed, the river has defined Paris since it was
founded by ancient Romans. It was along these riverbanks that merchants in the
Middle Ages first set up, creating a settlement that finally dwarfed once
bigger rivals like Lyon and Marseilles. And it was on the banks, too, that the
world’s finest architects constructed the Eiffel Tower, the Notre Dame
Cathedral, and the Louvre and Orsay museums—stunning monuments that draw
millions of visitors each year to sail down the narrow stretch of the Seine
that cuts through the dead center of Paris. Officials are therefore keenly
aware of the deeper significance of cleaning up the Seine, seeing it as a way
of connecting the modern city to its oldest history. “The Seine,” says Emmanuel
Grégoire, deputy mayor of Paris in charge of urban planning, “is the reason why
Paris was born.”
Once the €1.4 billion ($1.5 billion) project is finished—by next spring, if all
goes to plan—Parisians will be legally allowed to swim in the river for the
first time in a century. (Authorities banned it in 1923 because of high levels
of pollution.) “Swimming at the foot of the Eiffel Tower will be very
romantic,” Grégoire says, before guiding TIME underground into the giant—and
decidedly unromantic—rainwater storage tank, crucial to cleaning the Seine."
Via
Future Crunch:
<
https://futurecrunch.com/good-news-trachoma-benin-mali-deforestation-brazil-seine-paris/>
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
