Around 50,000 cubic meters of sewage has been dumped into the Seine River over the past several weeks, local city officials have said.
The incident occurred just two months before the start of the Summer Olympics during which French authorities plan for triathlon competitors to swim in the river.
“There has been a major malfunction at the network that delivers the wastewater from Conflans-Sainte-Honorine to the treatment plant,” Mayor Laurent Brosse told La Gazette du Val d’Oise on Wednesday. Three pumps in a suburb to the northwest of Paris stopped working due to electrical failure and that temporary pumps were installed.
An estimated 50,000 cubic meters of wastewater was released into the river as a result of the incident, according to the administration of the Grand Paris Seine et Oise area. Officials said that the discharge of contaminated water from the broken pumping system has been stopped.
Officials believe that particularly heavy seasonal rainfall 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.
The Paris authorities have invested €1.4 billion ($1.5 billion) into renovating the city’s water infrastructure, including new water storage reservoirs and pumps ahead of this month's games. Despite their best efforts, however, the latest tests conducted by water charity Surfrider show that the levels of E. coli and the enterococci bacteria in the Seine are higher than allowed by sports federations and European bathing standards, France 24 reported on Wednesday.
In order to quell concerns, French President Emmanuel Macron and Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo promised to take a swim in the river ahead of the Olympics.