New ‘underground cathedral’ opens ahead of Paris Olympics
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A visitor walks during a visit at the construction site of the 30-meter-deep Austerlitz basin, a river Seine water storage and treatment basin, aiming to make the river cleaner for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, in Paris on March 13, 2024. (Photo by Anne-Christine POUJOULAT / AFP)
New ‘underground cathedral’ opens ahead of Paris Olympics
(FILES) Visitors walk around the construction site of the 30-meter-deep Austerlitz basin, a river Seine water storage and treatment basin, aiming to make the river cleaner for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, in Paris on March 13, 2024. (Photo by Anne-Christine POUJOULAT / AFP)
New ‘underground cathedral’ opens ahead of Paris Olympics
Visitors stand inside the construction site of the 30-meter-deep Austerlitz basin, a river Seine water storage and treatment basin, aiming to make the river cleaner for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, in Paris on March 13, 2024. (Photo by Anne-Christine POUJOULAT / AFP)
New ‘underground cathedral’ opens ahead of Paris Olympics
(FILES) Visitors walk inside the construction site of the 30-meter-deep Austerlitz basin, a river Seine water storage and treatment basin, aiming to make the river cleaner for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, in Paris on March 13, 2024. (Photo by Anne-Christine POUJOULAT / AFP)
New ‘underground cathedral’ opens ahead of Paris Olympics
A visitor stands inside the construction site of the 30-meter-deep Austerlitz basin, a river Seine water storage and treatment basin, aiming to make the river cleaner for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, in Paris on March 13, 2024. (Photo by Anne-Christine POUJOULAT / AFP)
New ‘underground cathedral’ opens ahead of Paris Olympics
This photograph taken in Paris on March 13, 2024, shows a view inside the construction site of the 30-meter-deep Austerlitz basin, a river Seine water storage and treatment basin, aiming to make the river cleaner for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games. (Photo by Anne-Christine POUJOULAT / AFP)
New ‘underground cathedral’ opens ahead of Paris Olympics
Visitors walk inside the construction site of the 30-meter-deep Austerlitz basin, a river Seine water storage and treatment basin, aiming to make the river cleaner for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, in Paris on March 13, 2024. (Photo by Anne-Christine POUJOULAT / AFP)
PARIS—It has no spire, stained glass windows or nave but the cavernous underground stormwater facility inaugurated on Thursday in the French capital ahead of the Paris Olympics has been compared to Notre Dame Cathedral.
The giant new structure, burrowed 30 meters underground next to a train station, is a key part of efforts to clean up the river Seine, which is set to host swimming events during the Paris Games in July and August.
“It’s a real cathedral. It’s something exceptional,” Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo said on Thursday as she walked on the bottom of the vast cylinder-shaped construction that has taken more than three years to complete.
Deputy Paris mayor Antoine Guillou has compared the project in western Paris, near the Austerlitz transport hub, to Notre Dame, which is under reconstruction after a devastating fire in 2019.
“I like to say that we’re building two cathedrals,” he told reporters during a visit in mid-March.
“There’s the one above ground that everyone knows—Notre Dame. And then there’s the one underground.”
Notre Dame will not be ready in time for the Paris Games, as promised by President Emmanuel Macron immediately after the inferno that tore through the 850-year-old masterpiece.
Dirty discharges
But its spire has been restored and workers are busy working on the roof ahead of its grand reopening in December.
Fortunately for Olympic open-water swimmers, the stormwater facility is set to enter service in June after tests later this month.
Its role will be to store rainwater in the event of a heavy downpour, reducing the chances of the capital’s sewerage system needing to discharge its pathogen-rich contents directly into the Seine.
Paris’ sanitation system is under immense scrutiny following pledges from Olympic organizers to use the Seine for the marathon swimming and triathlon during the Games, which begin on July 26.
Cleaning up the river has also been promoted as one the key legacy achievements of Paris 2024, with Hidalgo intending to create three public bathing areas in its waters next year.
One of the features of the sanitation system—which dates from the mid 19th century—is that it collects sewage, domestic waste water and rain water in the same underground tunnels before directing them to treatment plants.
In the event of a major rainstorm, the system becomes overwhelmed, which leads to valves being opened that release excess water containing untreated sewage directly into the Seine.
In the 1990s, this led to around 20 million cubic meters of dirty water containing sewage being discharged every year, according to figures from the mayor’s office.
In recent years, after a multidecade investment and modernization program, the figure has fallen to around 2 million cubic meters.
On average, discharges occur around 12 times a year at present.
But with the new facility this number should fall to around two, city officials say.
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