Vox asks 'Can Paris fix its poop problem before the Olympics?'

The Olympic Games begin in Paris today, so I'm taking a break from both the Emmy nominees and working the eye of Project 2025, sometimes simultaneously, to feature Vox asking Can Paris fix its poop problem before the Olympics?

A key promise in Paris’s bid to host the 2024 Summer Olympics was that its famous river, the Seine, would be cleaned up in time to host open water swimming events: the triathlon, para triathlon, and marathon swimming. But swimming has been banned in the Seine for a century because the Paris sewer system is designed to dump wastewater into the river during heavy rain, when the sewers get overwhelmed by stormwater.

When that happens, levels of E. coli, a bacteria associated with fecal matter, spike in the river, making it too contaminated to swim in. In order to make good on its promise to clean the river, Paris officials took on a $1.5 billion USD infrastructure project that includes a massive underground tank and tunnel system meant to hold excess sewage during heavy rain and prevent further contamination of the Seine.

Water quality testing will be done daily ahead of the Olympic games this summer, and Paris officials are hopeful their ambitious plan to host swimming in the famously polluted river will succeed.

I hope the answer was yes.

I'm about to lecture on sewage treatment Monday night, so I'm considering showing this video to my environmental science class as a timely example of why the topic is relevant. The only concern I have is the BetterHelp promotion in the middle. Nearly every comment on the video complained about it, so I'll have to skip past it. I had no idea how many people dislike BetterHelp!

I might return to Olympics-related posts while the Games take place, but probably not tomorrow; I have Emmy nominations penciled in. Stay tuned.