Update July 30, 2024 – 2:30pm. PCBs, lead, PAHs, PFAS, E-coli + storms: Robin des Bois calls for cancellation of triathlon and marathon swimming events in the Seine in Paris. Athletes are not guinea pigs condemned to hard labor.
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The aquatic displays by Ms Oudéa-Castéra, Minister for Sports and the Olympic Games, and Ms Hidalgo, Mayor of Paris, demonstrate the political class’ accommodation with persistent chemical pollution. They are encouraging the general public to do the same, with no regard for health and safety. The statements made by some of the athletes invited to the Seine for the 1.5-km triathlon on 30 and 31 July and 5 August and the 10-km marathon swimming on 8 and 9 August are worrying. They say they are used to diving into dirty water and getting trash mouthfuls when swimming. They are being thrown into the murky waters of the Seine by the sports federations and the Paris 2024 Olympic Games Organising Committee.
The Seine in Paris is seriously, deeply and for a long time contaminated by PCBs (PolyChlorinated Biphenyls), which are related to dioxins. PCBs are classified as CMRs (carcinogenic, mutagenic and reprotoxic). Since 2010, all fish caught in Paris in the Seine, the Canal Saint-Martin and the Canal de l’Ourcq have been banned from consumption and sale because their levels exceed the standards set by the World Health Organisation, the European Union and national regulations. The manufacture of PCBs has been banned since the 1990-2000 decade, but they continue to spread in the upstream basin of the Seine from dozens of brownfield sites, after copper robberies from discarded transformers and as a result of discharges from wastewater treatment plants. PCBs were used in open systems in gaskets, sealants, inks, carbon paper, paints and pesticides, and in closed systems in electrical transformers and capacitors. Shortcomings in the regulatory hunt for sources and holders of PCBs are partly responsible for their persistence in the ecosystems of the Seine.
The Seine in Paris is also seriously, deeply and for a long time contaminated by PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyls). The report by the IGEDD (Inspection Générale de l’Environnement et du Développement Durable – General Inspectorate for the Environment and Sustainable Development), published at the request of Robin des Bois 4 months after it was finalised (it was held up at the Prime Minister’s Matignon Palace), notes the existence of several contaminated sites in the Paris area. Near Melun, upstream of Paris, in the Ancoeur stream, a sub-tributary of the Seine, a level of 725 nanograms/litre was measured. This PFAS concentration comes from the fire-fighting exercise site at Total’s Grandpuits refinery. In fact, fire-fighting foams are the main users of PFASs, alongside widespread and multiple uses in the food packaging, pesticides, textiles, non-stick coatings and cosmetics sectors among others. Just upstream of Paris, the Marsange, a 30km-long sub-tributary of the Seine, is regularly contaminated by fire-fighting water and carries large quantities of pesticides potentially laced with PFAS. According to the IGEDD report, it discharges 300 kg of PFAS per year. Like PCBs, PFAS are persistent, bioaccumulative substances that are suspected of promoting diabetes, obesity and hypercholesterolaemia. They cross placental barriers and contaminate foetuses.
Chemical pollutants are completely overlooked when it comes to assessing the regulatory quality of bathing water. Only microbiological pollution is taken into account. In this area, uncertainty persists. The proliferation of intestinal enterococci and Escherichia coli on the course of the Olympic events after the rain that accompanied the opening ceremony on the evening of Friday 26 July and continued for part of Saturday shows that the Austerlitz rainwater and wastewater retention basin inaugurated on 2 May 2024, which is supposed to protect the Paris Seine from microbiological proliferation, is not fully fulfilling its mission. The thresholds prescribed by an old fashioned EU directive were once again exceeded on Sunday 28, Monday 29, and today Tuesday 30 July.
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