The city of Paris has been in the news recently with a bold new project that overheated Parisians are praising during the hot summer: public swimming pools in the River Siene.
Long thought to be too polluted for swimming and other water recreation, the Siene has undergone a gradual cleanup that began in the 1980s as the city implemented measures to reduce industrial and sanitary sewer contamination. With the recent addition of the Parisian swimming pools and the enthusiastic response to them, the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review’s Matt Santoni asks, what would it take for a similar idea to work in Pittsburgh’s rivers?
Riverlife’s president and CEO Vivien Li spoke with Matt about her past experience working to make the Boston Harbor more swimmable, and how a 2009 federal mandate for the Allegheny County Sanitary Authority to improve river water quality by 2024.
Read: “Public beaches in Pittsburgh? One official says maybe someday” on the Tribune-Review website
Image by Ehren Zaun
