WVU hydrologist speaks on the water quality of River Seine during Paris Olympics

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. (WBOY) — With the Olympics taking place in Paris this year, some events are also set to be held in the River Seine, leading many to criticize the water’s safety, despite the city’s efforts to improve its quality.

Nearly 1.5 billion euros have been invested in the river’s cleanup process over less than a decade, and WVU Professor of Physical Hydrology Dr. Jason Hubbart told 12 News that credit should be given to the city for its monumental strides in water quality restoration.

“There’s still work to do, but this is astounding progress. I think it’s a great motivator for other people, other cities, other geographies around the planet to see an example of how this can look and what we can actually accomplish if we put our mind and money to the matter,” said Dr. Hubbart.

With the increase in buildings, industries and population density, the River Seine hasn’t been safe to swim in since 1923, an issue that has affected waterways globally. However, the 2024 Olympics coming to Paris is ultimately what floored change.

Aside from dredging and removing nearly a century’s worth of waste from the river floor, Paris has also eliminated waste from houseboats by creating a direct pipeline to its sewer system. Most recently, the city created a massive rainwater storage basin that’s approximately the length of 20 Olympic pools and could fit the Statue of Liberty with only her torch sticking out, according to Dr. Hubbart.

“What it’s going to do is hold a lot of stormwater runoff, so if you have an event where you get a lot of rainfall, where it flushes a lot of stormwater. If that stormwater becomes too much, then you end up with overflow from sewage systems, and without getting into the details, it just means that during very high events, you can get some mixing of sewage,” said Dr. Hubbart.

Dr. Hubbart stated that officials involved in the river’s cleaning process and in the Paris Olympics are acknowledging these possibilities and have already addressed them by delaying events until the water quality is back at a healthy level as the liability of the athletes’ health is a big concern to Olympic officials.

“What we live in is a multi-partisan world, water and water quality is one of those issues that is case in point. If you get 100 people in a room, ask what water quality is, you’re going to get 100 different answers. Why would that be different for anything else that people care about? That’s the key, is getting people together that think differently to come up with a common cause like water, which is, of course, the greatest integrator to solve big problems,” said Dr. Hubbart.

Beyond the restoration of the River Seine for the 2024 Olympics, the city of Paris is even taking into consideration a few locations of the river that can be utilized for public swimming once the games wrap up.

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