The city’s pumping system has suffered a malfunction two months before the start of the Summer Olympic Games
Around 50,000 cubic meters of sewage water has been dumped into the Seine River over the past several weeks due to the problems with the pumping system in a suburb to the northwest of Paris, local officials have said.
The incident occurred two months before the start of the Summer Olympics, with French authorities rushing to clean up the river so that athletes could swim in it during triathlon events.
“There has been a major malfunction at the network that delivers the wastewater from Conflans-Sainte-Honorine to the treatment plant,” municipal mayor Laurent Brosse told La Gazette du Val d’Oise on Wednesday. He said that three pumps had stopped working due to electrical failure and that temporary pumps had been installed instead.
An estimated 50,000 cubic meters of wastewater has been released into the river since the incident, according to the administration of the Grand Paris Seine et Oise area, which includes Conflans-Sainte-Honorine. Officials said that the discharge of contaminated water from the broken pumping system has been stopped.
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The commune of Conflans-Sainte-Honorine is located some 24 km (15 miles) from downtown Paris. Officials believe that particularly heavy seasonal rainfall had caused damage to the equipment. Locals took to social media to complain about the foul smell coming from the river and reported seeing sanitary tissues and wipes floating in the water. Videos circulating on X (formerly Twitter) show brown water flowing into the river.
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Des eaux usées déversées dans la Seine après un dysfonctionnement des pompes dans les Yvelineshttps://t.co/6SSi7LZJen pic.twitter.com/UxP6sxYuLp