Here’s what to know about Seine River water quality during the Paris Olympics

 Team boats on the Siene with the Eiffel Tower in the background during the opening ceremony of the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris, France, Friday, July 26. AP-Yonhap

Swimming has been off-limits in the long-polluted Seine River in Paris for more than a century. So with Olympic swimming events on tap for the river, the city poured in $1.5 billion (1.4 billion euros) to try to clean it up.

With the Paris Games underway, officials are keeping a close eye on water quality. Athletes could feel health effects from swimming in a river with higher-than-accepted levels of E. coli or other bacteria.

Here are key things to know:

Paris, like many old cities around the world, has a combined sewer system, which means that the city’s wastewater and stormwater flow through the same pipes. With heavy or prolonged periods of rain , the pipes can get overwhelmed and untreated wastewater flows into the river instead of to a 홀짝게임 treatment plant.

That could mean bacteria, viruses or parasites get in the water, said Dr. Nicole Iovine, an infectious disease specialist at University of Florida Health in Gainesville. And it’s not just from human waste.

“It’s also the wildlife — rodents, for example. When it rains a lot, all of that from those animals can end up in the Seine,” she said.

To prepare for the Paris Games, the city built a giant basin to capture excess rainwater and keep untreated waste from flowing into the river, renovated the sewage system and upgraded water treatment plants.

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