Although the water quality of the Seine River has improved, Paris still has a long way to go to clean up the water so that the population can bathe and even drink the river’s water. “There is a lot of work to be done so that we can achieve completely safe and healthy levels of this river,” said César Pegoraro, an environmental educator at the non-governmental organization (NGO) SOS Mata Atlântica and a biology and ecology professor.
Interviewed by journalist Mara Régia, on the Natureza Viva program, on Rádio Nacional da Amazônia, this Sunday (11), Pegoraro, who had just arrived from France, said that, although the river was not completely clean, he was surprised by how clean the Seine was.
“What I saw there, what I noticed, is an incredibly clean river. And I would say, inviting. It has fish, it has a diversity, a fairly large quantity of fish. You have people, citizens, male and female, rowing on the river. An urban river with people in kayaks, people in boats with their speedboats going up and down the river among cargo boats, among tourist boats,” he said.
France has invested around 1.4 billion euros (about R$8.3 billion) in a new wastewater structure to reduce the amount of sewage flowing into the river. Even so, trainings were cancelled and Olympic athletes fell ill due to river pollution.
Pegoraro explains that, despite the investment, because it is located in a large city, the river is subject to so-called diffuse pollution. “This pollution is the kind of pollution that we don’t pay much attention to, but it is very dangerous for the quality of the rivers. Because it is the kind of trash that ends up falling into the street, sometimes unintentionally, the soot from cars, the oil from vehicles that fall, the atmospheric soot itself that settles on the streets and, when it rains, all of this ends up in the river,” he observed.
Therefore, according to him, urban rivers “are unlikely to have incredible quality, a quality as if they were preserved in a natural environment.” However, compared to Brazilian urban rivers, such as the Tietê River in São Paulo, the Seine is in better condition to be appropriated by the population.
The professor also says that Brazil can learn from the initiative. Of course, a lot of investment is needed, but also the valorization of basic sanitation and educational measures.
“Basic sanitation must be a citizen project. As voters and taxpayers, we must demand the dignity of having basic sanitation in every home, in every city,” he argues. He adds that investment must be combined with education: “because there is no point in investing money and time if we do not change people’s awareness.”
