Guys, E.Coli is not dangerous. It is an indicator of fecal dangerous bacteria, but by itself it will maybe cause some diarrhea, if in large quantities. So... you have a mistake in the first 30 seconds.
@@TheB1M actually there is one in Paris, and it's right in the middle of the Seine. The south western end of the Ile aux Cygnes is where the Statute of Liberty can be found in Paris. It's one quarter the size of the Ellis Island version.
The Statue of Liberty was built in France by a French architect before being transported across the Atlantic and given as a gift to the fledgling United States. There's absolutely nothing wrong with using it here. Interestingly the same man contributed to both iconic structures: the Statue of Liberty and the one to which you're obviously referring.
London and paris have always been useless and oudated with habdling their rivers. Eg Stockholm you can see people swimming/fish etc. Even drink the water without getting e.coil like 3rd world london/paris
@@stokedd we implemented sewage water treatment plants on one hand (had the biggest effect), and we had a deindustrialization as labor costs were simply too high. Offices and services simply do not have the same amount of waste water.
I have seen pictures and videos of people in Bern, the national capital city, wearing waterproof covers over their work clothes and swimming across the river Aare, which flows through the city, when going home after work in summer to avoid a detour through the bridges.
I don't know if the Seine will be completely clean but already with a 90% reduction in pollutants it seems to be on the right track and then in terms of gigantic engineering France has been one of the leaders for centuries. (see the construction of the Canal du Midi under Louis XIV).
Thanks! I didn't know about that one. Everyone knows about the Panama and Suez, of course. It's easier to build canals when you have a monarchy that can say: put it here than it is in the current environment.
@@noefillon1749 I think that's the one where I have heard it commented that the best view of Paris is from it - as you can't see it! It's possible I suppose.
"The Seine is heavily polluted with high levels of wastewater, sewage and faecal matter." - Thames Water shrugs "Swimming in the river puts you at risk of contracting E. coli and incurs €15" - Thames Water, 'Can we charge people to swim in sh*t?'
I'm a Parisian. I am HIGHLY SKEPTICAL. I also love the idea of 26 swimming pools... as long as the water is NOT directly taken from the Seine, but filtered first. No matter how much they'll say the water is safe. And the swimming pools better have super-strong walls in case a 50m long and many many tons heavy freight barge suddenly... well, barges in.
J'ai du mal à imaginer comment ils peuvent réussir à ôter toutes la merde de la Seine alors qu'ils ne sont même pas fichus de veiller à ce que des passagers ne trouvent pas d'étron sur leur siège de RER.
There's a lot of bullshit info being thrown around trying to scare people off when it comes to the quality of the Seine water. Let's just say some gain to benefit from the olympics turning into a fiasco.
bah le pire s'est qu'on se tape des sècheresse tous les ans maintenant, est que le niveau de la seine baisse énormément, Ducoup, la piscine marche pas a par si elle pompe le peu d'eau qu'il y a non stop pour garder le niveaux, presque si il on démarrer les travaux en été durant la sècheresse (je pense pas) sa veux dire quelle sera totalement submerger quant l'eau monte, et si il la construise en automne/hiver bah Ducoup en été quant les gens voudront y aller il pourront pas vu que le niveaux de l'eau sera si bas que toute les piscine seront sèche ou des pédiluve. ducoup pour faire croire quil ont nettoyer la seine, il vont utiliser de l"eau d'ailleur a un moment ou tous le monde et rationer, tous sa pour des piscine quasi gelee, puisque la seine coule en continue, leau ne peu pas se rechauffer et va rester trop froide pour se beigner,. donc il vont devoir alimenter les 26 piscine et les peu etre chauffer, se qui va couter une blinde pour une piscine ou 90% de la population n'iront pas parsque il non pas confiance en l"eau
Zurich's clean up is so successful thst I wasn't aware there ever was one. Swimming in the Limmat is possible at many different great locations. Furthermore the lake has also many access points and Zurich doesn't disappoint in the giant amount of public swimming pools both openair and covered
French here. Very good reporting. Just a few mistakes: - The pool's name Bassin de la Villette is pronounced /veelett/, not /veeliett/. - The Oise river is pronounced /was/, not /oyz/. - About the hole being dug at Austerlitz, your numbers are mixed up on screen, showing 34 m wide and 50 m high (yet you say the opposite, so I think your graph is wrong) Finally, most Parisians don't like to take a dip in the Seine because the current is extremely strong and because the boat and barge traffic is very heavy. It's just too risky to swim in it outside of these official pools.
@@matthiasdarrington3271 Affordable rents are absolutely a big issue that needs to be addressed. But a clean river, and the much improved cycling infrastructure, etc. are things all people can enjoy.
It's almost never helpful to host the Olympics, look at all the stats, isn't Greece still paying off their debts and it crippled their non exisentant economy for decades?@@martinc.720
@@jarnix2 the RER E to the west, the CDG Express, as well as the Grand Paris Express' many metro lines and extensions (even if they will not all be ready), were all part of the Olympic project: do you believe these projects will make life worse? Or are you crying because Hidalgo taxes your SUV parking spot? Or because you can't cope with the popular success of the bike infrastructure?
Both the Marne and Oise rivers flow INTO the Seine - the Marne just before the Seine enters Paris, the Oise (pronounced "wahss") just after it exits the city. So, I don't understand how cleaning up the Seine will make them cleaner as well.
Switzerland water was among the worst 60 years ago. Excellent sewage treatment systems did the trick for them. It wasn't easy. Def serves as a modern model.
Politicians do have a habit of overpromising as you mentioned, but it looks like they might succeed. Nothing like having the whole world watching and the billions of euros that an event like the Olympics generates to get them to finally move forward. My only question is, can they keep it going or will people again start using it as an open air waste disposal site and it be allowed to slip back into the polluted past?
Of course politicians have this bad habit to not keep their promises. On the other hand people aren't responsible of the pollution in the Seine, they don't use it as an open waste disposal, the vehicles thrown into the Seine are borderline criminal activities. The fecal matter present in the Seine happens because of the sewer system which is too old, it's one of the world first system built in the 19th century. The main problem is that it's connected directly with the rainwater system. To solve this there are two parallel efforts, the separation of the 2 systems, and the creation of security tanks to collect rainwater in case it rains too much, so the rainwater wouldn't be evacuated into the sewer system and overflow into the Seine. The heavy costs are an investment, a useful one on the long term if the Seine river stays clean after the olympic games. Only a big flooding would pollute it again I guess.
Construction projects for Olympic games and other big international sports events have a dubious history when it comes to quality and finishing them on time, but the French seem to be on track with this one. Not having a backup plan is certainly a bold move...
What if it rains prior to the events? Everything on the streets will end up in the river. Not a good plan. If I were a swimmer I would not be happy about this.
Love your content but my god do you always pick some of the worst sponsors. If it isn't Masterworks it's now a glorified £100 water bottle with dubious 'self cleaning' claims? Stick to the VPN's, e learning etc mate.
@TheB1M and The Statue of Liberty is 151 feet tall, so it fits. Unless you mean the entire structure at 305 feet, then it's twice as tall. Wiki is my source.
Or politicians, I mean think of Boris Johnson, dumping poopoo and piss in every British river! I doubt Brits would have rrelected the Toris if they had prior knowledge.@@Belaziraf
actually Amsterdam has a;ready come a long way in cleaning the canals. Even the queen has already swam there several times during a charity ecent against cancer. They achieved this cleaning operationby flushing the canals in a process where they closed several sluses and pumped in "clean" lake water on one side in order to flush out the polluted water. Meanwhile, they made a great effort to "fish" scrap metal and other waste out of the canals with 3 boats working 40hrs/week
It can’t be metal clean in Amsterdam since there are dozens of bikes being dumped everyday! My wife is Dutch, last thing she will do is swim in any Amsterdam canals. And I’m French so I’ll tell you to never ever swim in the Seine, this is an absolute madness.
Actual cost will be above 1.5 b. Most scientists involved don't think it will be safe to swim in after completion. It will be somewhat cleaner depending on rain amounts. There are some excellent videos explaining how the system works.
LA river has water year round, but it is literally bedded in a concrete 'sewer pipe'. There are clean up plans to restore a natural flow of the river. the concrete bankings will be taken away and a more natural embankment restored ... Along the river should recreational green zone created, with walk and bike paths ..
But for the 11 million people, I'd say the Emscher in Germany proves you can fix a river in a megacity... That one took 1992 - 2022 to run a secondary river for waste water below the river, though. ...and while Berlin *would* be arrogant enough to need to look at Paris instead of the Ruhr area, I think 30 years of actual progress motivate them more than Paris building an overflow valve.
Yeah, in fact they're cleaning up the Marne to help clean up the Seine, not the other way around. (Around my way there's a big operation to check everybody's wastewater and rain water connections to make sure they're correctly set up -- we have two sewer systems, one for EU ("Eau Usée" -- wastewater, i.e. shit) and one for EP -- ("Eau de Pluie, i.e. rainwater) to make sure that storms don't flood the Marne with sewage).
I can understand this easily: I'm British (N'est par choix! 🇪🇺❤🔥) and live near to London. I would *not* want to swim in the Thames when knowing that it's condition got so bad at one point even a _Conservative_ government awarded funds for the construction of a municipal sewerage system... 💩🇬🇧😳
everytime a foreigner was in paris and a frenchman said "yes" in french, the foreigner obliged. hence the polluted river... Hopefully more cities take up the challenge, I really like the concept of these free to access riverside pools. Great way to build up community as well as activity
Not sure if it's being mentioned yet, but at the 4min30sec mark, the basin is noted as being as 50m wide and 34m deep, but the picture looks like the reverse (ie. 50m deep and 34m wide). Apologies if I'm hearing/watching this wrong, but am I?
It’s a shame there was no mention of Tideway London, a 25km Super Sewer under the Thames to intercept sewage. It was approved in 2022 and should be completed in 2025.
@@philipvecchio3292 There are three kinds of crap you can find yourself in, depending on the level of severity... _Shit!_ 💩 _Sheet!!!_ 💩💩💩 And...Of course... _Brexit!_ 💩🇬🇧💩🇬🇧💩🇬🇧😉
Amazing video, as always! Just one minor correction: e. coli is not a pathogenous bacteria itself, it's merely used as a "proxy" to identify the potential presence of faecal matter contamination in water samples.
"Just one minor correction: e. coli is not a pathogenous bacteria itself" Both wrong and right. E coli can be perfectly harmless or it can be utterly lethal. It absolutely depends on the strain of the bug that you've got to deal with.
@@davidpnewton thank you for the correction! You're right. It's a very common misconception to assume e. coli is strictly pathogenous, when in reality it's a common gastrointestinal bacteria to warm-blooded animals.
@@luizrigotto7131 also think you mean pathogenic, as in something which generates pathos (bad things). As in a pathogenic strain v a non-pathogenic strain.
If I were an Olympic swimmer, I'd be a bit concerned that the officials are more worried about forcing the events to be in the river instead of mentioning anything about "as long as it's safe for the swimmers' health." Maybe the newspaper took the quotes out of context.
During the 1900 olimpics, the river Seine was filthy. The city dumped over 2,715,000 people waste water into the river. There weren't any sewage treatment plants, neither water quality analysis. So, let's hope that they improve the quality of the water behond the threshold of 1900.
The talk over says 50m wide by 34 m tall yet the diagram shows the opposite. Assuming it is 50m wide by 34 m tall it would hold the equivalent of a 0.64mm rainfall over the the 105 km2 area of Paris. Not sure that is going to help.
GREAT VIDEO..Do you know Bitcoin is on its way to breaking records, getting closer to hitting new high prices, showing that it's gaining more value and could go even higher than we've seen before. This could mean great things for people looking to invest, suggesting now might be a good time to get involved before it jumps even higher. It's an exciting moment that could change the game in general...managed to grow a nest egg of around 1.2Biitcoin to a decent 6.4Biitcoin. At the heart of this evolution is indeko Glenn, whose deep understanding of both cryptocurrency and traditional trading has been instrumental. Her holistic approach to investment and commitment to staying abreast of market trends make her an invaluable ally in navigating this new era in cryptocurrency investment....
Amazing content as always! Would love to see some content on the Italian Tortona-Genoa high-speed railway, also known as Third Pass! It's a €7 billion project connecting the two northern cities of Genoa and Turin with a line 53 km long (of which 36km of tunnels)
of course, the people spending all the taxpayer's money are going to say the water is now clean, and we all know how trustworthy governments can be.... right....
In Singapore, the Singapore River was cleaned up when Singapore became independent. The river now feeds into a reservoir, converted by enclosing the water basin with reclaimed land and a barrage separating the water body from the open sea.
Lake Ontario is a great example of how dedicated work over decades can restore a body of water. It used to be massively polluted thanks to all of the industry, and now is way cleaner and very safe to swim in,
As a Parisian, I've been taking the metro on the bridge over the hole twice a day for 3 years now. I'm only now learning what this weird construction site is all about thanks to this video... so thanks a lot haha
Living in France, the plans to have the Olympics in the Seine have been cancelled months ago because cleaning it was impossible for that time, an olympic pools was built but too small so they are building another one in a stadium ...
French here, these Olympic Games are for us the worst thing that could happen. French government has been literally pressing us from everywhere these years. Tbh most of us don't even know they are building this. They don't really communicate about it (because we all know it won't work) and because at this price when half French are under poverty, they cut all government help to students, single parents, electricity raised, rent raised. We don't want these games in our country. They plan to make public transport between x2 and x3 for the period.. but we all know it will end up to be the new price because "people can pay" You know how much is an Airbnb night in Paris during the game actually ? From 700€ to 2000€ a night. Most French don't earn 1500€ a month.
Which do we think it is? Is it a wide 50m x 34m pool and the graphic is wrong or is it a deep 50m x 34m pool and the voiceover is wrong? I'm unsure, feels like pumping a deeper pool is more difficult but a wider pool takes more space. Hm?
As a British person, I feel that it is my civic duty to throw even more chaos into the mix... 🙃🇬🇧😉 I think you'll find that the „correct“ dimensions for that tank are: 164ft deep by 111ft 6in across. 😋 (Notes: Not to: Scale. Normal system of measurement: Metric. If in doubt: Panic... 💩)
Was gonna buy Lara bottle but apparently they break easily, especially the cap. I’ve had the same water bottle for three years, I wouldn’t want something I need to replace frequently, especially at that price.
As a French living next to Paris and working here I can genuinely assure you that Olympics games are going to be a disaster mates. Nothing is ready, they spent many hundreds of millions euros to build, clean, improve things but 50% is ready right now. + you’ll discover that Paris isn’t the city of love anymore 😂😂😂 you’ll be afraid and be prepared regarding the high prices, every one wills to put their price higher for touris (restaurants, AirBnB, gifts etc etc..) they have told us to stay at home, to not come to Paris during Olympic Games because there won’t be enough places on the trains/metros/taxis etc They have even told the students to leave their students rooms (CROUS) in compensation of 100€ to let tourist sleep here for 300-400€ a night 😂😂😂😂😂 Welcome to France mates !
at 4:25 - this might be minor, but the visual states 34m wide and 50m deep but the voiceover mentions 50m wide and 34m deep. not sure which height scale works with the statue
similar solution to Japan's flooding problem but what took them take so long to implement the reservoir solution. Politics probably. I mean it's just a super large tank to catch the run off and then release it slowly so it doesn't flood the river. I'm sure French Engineers had suggested this a long time ago. It's now that there's Olympicsthat the poop matters. IN my country the most recent and modern rail system was built in 2010 to help foreigners move between Football stadiums for world cup. There was no development of public transport before and after the world cup. we still don't have trains
Yeah unfortunately this happens all the time. Tons of prep for the games and then nothing after. The game are supposed to have a huge economic impact on the host city but it just goes to the rich.
How strange that sewage and storm water are not separated. Digging up the streets would be a major problem to separate the two. Diverting storm water will not really help much.
This is common in older areas of most North American cities, and it's the long term plan in many places to separate sewers, but it's a massive and expensive effort that will take decades. I'd be surprised if no EU cities had combined sewers in older areas.
They are among the older " modern " sewage system , engineering have evolved a lot, climate change have altered old construction efficiency, overpopulation were not necessary planned, and many other factor wasn't planned at this time etc
Fun fact : the river flowing through Paris should be called the "Yonne" ! Because where the "Seine" and the "Yonne" cross in the city of Montereau-Fault-Yonne. The "Yonne" river has a greater water flow. Bit historically they couldn't get a precise measurement and it just so, stayed like that. (For those who wonder the Seine has a 80 cubic meter/ second and the Yonne has a 93m³/s flowing rate.)
It sounds like Paris has a combined sewer. It would be interesting to know what would be involved to separate it into 2 systems (sanitary and run-off).
Having been to Paris several times over the past 35 years, there’s no way I’d ever swim in the Seine. Even if numerous tests for bacteria were conducted while I watched, I’d never be able to get past my mental block. Just remembering the smell of the Seine on past visits makes me want to not go anywhere near it.
Rio de Janeiro failed to clean up Guanabara Bay and the lagoons in the western part of the city in time for the Olympic Games. However, since 2021 the state's sanitation administration has been handed over to other companies in exchange for investments in the network and cleaning up. The lagoons have already begun to be cleaned and the bay should start soon. It's a historic issue here and I hope it finally works out this time.
Dozens of billions of euros are being pumped into Paris. So many new infrastructures, so many architectural jewel like no other city in Europe is evolving as much.
Even if that were true, it would only be because Paris has a lot of catching up to do and is largely made up of slums and decaying infrastructure. Berlin and London took care of their water quality and other things decades ago.
I am French and I learned about this work via a video created abroad. Je suis français et je prends connaissance de ces travaux via une vidéo créé à l'étranger.
They're trying to get Olympic athletes to swim in the river to convince the locals which I assume know more about the situation that it's safe to swim in the river. Did I get that right?
During the test events held in 2023 many of the athletes got sick, despite official tests by the event were below defined levels. Regular tests performed the same day by the water management that are done all year round showed levels way above set thresholds. So I guess they still have a long way to go and risking the health of Olympic athletes should not be an option.
@@bionity4749 Yes, if you cancel the tests, the water is clean and there is no problem. A typically politician way of "solving problems".. I feel like at the last minute the competition will be held in a local public pool.
I wonder how difficult is to reorient runoff from the rain to the tank ? Then, all the network might be considered as a tank to help the downstream treatment, right ?
I'm sorry B1M, but this video has some errors. I quote someone else on Reddit: "1.5 Billions comes from efforts of all administrations around the water policies in all Ile-de-France region before Paris. The Austerlitz pool costs only 90M inside this budget. The majority goes to the SIAAP with bacterias elimination plant on their sewage treatment plant."
Nice! Even when not taking advantage of it, I believe that living in a city where you could go swimming in a river if you wanted to, will raise the subjective quality of life.
