Swimming in the Seine, Olympics 2024 Paris.

[Erie Fred]

But 1.4 billion, I'm speechless.

The paper bills are absorbent, will filter out the problems, and then be fished out and incinerated.....

 

[minimutly]

In Paris the sewerage treatment plants are downstream in the Seine which leads eventually to the sea, not in Paris itself. The issue was that rainfall is processed in the same network as raw sewage and industrial wastewater & during heavy rainfall, the excess rainwater overloaded the capacity of the system, and caused grey waste to overflow into the Seine, not just rainwater excess. The system was designed in the 18th century so it was fairly groundbreaking for a century but its overloaded by modern life.
Whats been done is diverting rainwater outflows into a dedicated rainwater holding pool during periods of excess flow, and then re-draining the holding pool back into the treatment network during periods of normal weather. I think they did this because rainwater picks up pollution from washing down the dirty Parisian streets and roadways, so they still wanted to clean it before readding it the Seine.

I walked through the works a few times this year on the temporary walkways put in place for Austerlitz and other stations and the scale of what had to be done was mind boggling. Machines working and concrete being poured 60m below road level in giant open air construction sites in the middle of Paris. No wonder it was expensive.
Also, cleaning up the Seine was a major part of the Olympic bid, without that they probably wouldn't have won.

Jacques Chirac when he was mayor had a plan to clean it up in 3 years, but even when he was president the scale and resources never materlialized, but Paris have been wanting to sort the issue out for years.
I hate Paris and the general attitude that Paris IS France and the rest is just the barbarians (Like being in a posh suburb of London eh?...), and I'm forced to travel there quite often because a lot of the companies I do stuff for have only Parisian presences & even to travel to other parts of France by train you have to first go up 3 hours to Paris then down to your destination because of how they deliberately designed the rail network for parisians ease, and I detest Hildago for her consistent anti car/bike policies which means Paris by car/bike/motorhome is dead to me and she is batshit crazy, but this is not her brainchild no matter how much she wants to cover herself in the glory from it.

This is exactly the same issue as with all historic towns in the uk - the sewers are "combined" rain and foul.
Seperating them out means digging whole streets up and putting in new pipes etc. Then when it rains all you get washed into the rivers is cigaret butts and Mcdonalds wrappers

 

[julianthegypsy]

But 1.4 billion, I'm speechless.

That's nothing! We spent 37 billion pounds on an app for covid. That didn't work. That we could have had for free. Makes cleaning up the seine seem positively frugal by comparison!
On a related note, I often drive pass the new A417 missing link roadworks, which are taking several years to complete and will eventually mean continuous dual carriageway between Gloucester on the M5 and the M4 at Swindon. There's currently a huge bottle neck at the air balloon. These works are massive, a huge hill is being flattened, among other things and the scale of the earthworks is staggering. The cost? Depending how it goes, between 250 and 500 million. You could have 74 of them for the cost of...an app.

 

[cheb]

That's nothing! We spent 37 billion pounds on an app for covid. That didn't work. That we could have had for free. Makes cleaning up the seine seem positively frugal by comparison!
On a related note, I often drive pass the new A417 missing link roadworks, which are taking several years to complete and will eventually mean continuous dual carriageway between Gloucester on the M5 and the M4 at Swindon. There's currently a huge bottle neck at the air balloon. These works are massive, a huge hill is being flattened, among other things and the scale of the earthworks is staggering. The cost? Depending how it goes, between 250 and 500 million. You could have 74 of them for the cost of...an app.

The Government did not spend £37 billion on the NHS Test and Trace app – Full Fact

A post on Instagram has claimed that £37 billion was “wasted” on the NHS Test and Trace app when it actually cost about £35 million in its first year.

fullfact.org

 

[Screwdriver]

Just for the historical accuracy, it was of course "Track and Trace". Still is if you ask me. They changed the name, not the underlying technology which is of course aimed at tracking the movement of entire swathes of the population. More of this sort of thing to come (CBDC anyone?)>

Damn shame if the French protest de merde failed or was circumvented. Sounded like a brilliant idea....

 

[Erie Fred]

Theme song for the swim competition....

 

[Smallfry]

This is exactly the same issue as with all historic towns in the uk - the sewers are "combined" rain and foul.
Seperating them out means digging whole streets up and putting in new pipes etc. Then when it rains all you get washed into the rivers is cigaret butts and Mcdonalds wrappers

Exactly what happens where my mums house is, except that its KFC stuff instead.

 

[julianthegypsy]

The Government did not spend £37 billion on the NHS Test and Trace app – Full Fact

A post on Instagram has claimed that £37 billion was “wasted” on the NHS Test and Trace app when it actually cost about £35 million in its first year.

fullfact.org

OK, even allowing for that. Public health are already there to do exactly this job. They do it all the time and have all the required skills. All they would have needed was some more staff and would have handled it perfectly, but of course that's not exciting enough and no-one would have made a fortune...

 

[DAPPH]

One of the requirements of hosting the Olympics, is that it should lead to an improvement in the area that it is hosted.

Could be very difficult in France then ?

 

[Keith 66]

I went to Calais once, I was struck at what a dump it was, the pavements in the town were a sea of dog turds to the extent you were playing hopscotch constantly to avoid them. It was like Tilbury but with more dog crap.

 

[dobbslc]

You sure they were dog turds?

 

[skotl]

Not the same person.

Proof required

 

[Melvyn Best]

Not sure she is proving the Seine is safe to swim in, just the fact that she’s daft enough to swim in it?

 

[Nomad]

A mix of links with background info

June: Olympics being called a 10Bn Euro "disaster"

The 10 Bn Euro Paris Olympics Disaster | Armstrong Economics

https://twitter.com/Olympics/status/1798992789210034583

www.armstrongeconomics.com

2 days before the opening ceremony, lots of problems being reported - airports closed on opening day, exclusion zone around the Seine during the games, lots more...

Why over half a million tickets remain unsold for the Paris Olympics

Paris' decision to host the Olympics was controversial.

metro.co.uk

5 members of the Australian Swimming team test positive for Covid

MSN

UK viewers will need to pay to watch most of the Olympics, BBC have some rights, Warner Bros have full coverage (at a price)

Olympics fans warned they face paywall due to limited BBC coverage

The UK boss of Warner Bros. Discovery has defended the company putting much of the Olympics behind a paywall,

www.dailymail.co.uk

Co-ordinated arson and vandalism attacks on the French high speed train system just hours before the opening ceremony

https://twitter.com/x/status/1816729476299919870

More at https://www.france24.com/en/europe/...eed-train-network-paralysed-by-malicious-acts

A French/Swiss airport is being evacuated "for security reasons" - late details say it's a bomb alert

https://twitter.com/x/status/1816776607941398643

Also https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ar...ralysed-massive-coordinated-arson-attack.html

It sounds like it's not going smoothly ...

 

[dobbslc]

And I thought it was just us that couldn't organise a pizz up in a brewery...

 

[RichardM]

And I thought it was just us that couldn't organise a pizz up in a brewery...

Most governments couldn't organise one, unless someone else is paying for it...........

 

[sg66]

Most governments couldn't organise one, unless someone else is paying for it...........

I would still doubt their ability to organise it, it would be over budget, over time and they would have drunk all the drink

 

[Barking Mat]

Watching the opening ceremony, don't know what to make of it, very odd.

 

[dobbslc]

To be fair I think the 2012 Olympics went down very well here.

 

[RichardM]

To be fair I think the 2012 Olympics went down very well here.

Too London centric for me.