Paris Sewer Museum

Le Musée des Égouts de Paris, or the Paris Sewer Museum, is dedicated to the sewer system of Paris.

History of the sewer system

Until the Middle Ages, the drinking water in Paris was taken from the river Seine. The wastewater was poured onto fields or unpaved streets, and finally filtered back into the Seine.Around 1200, Phillipe Auguste had the Parisian streets paved, incorporating a drain for waste water in their middle.

In 1370 Hugues Aubriot, a Parisian provost had a vaulted, stone walled sewer built in the "rue Montmartre". This sewer collected the wastewater and took it to the "Ménilmontant" brook. However the wastewater was still drained in the open air.

Under the reign of Louis XIV, a large ring sewer was built on the right bank, and the Biévre River was used as a sewer for the left bank of the Seine. Under Napoleon I, the first Parisian vaulted sewer network was built that was 30 km long.

In 1850 baron Haussmann, the prefect for the Seine, and the engineer Eugéne Belgrand, designed the present Parisian sewer and water supply networks. Thus was built, more than a century ago, a double water supply network (one for drinking water and one for non drinking water) and a sewer network which was 600 km long in 1878.

From Belgrand to the present

Belgrand's successors went on extending the Parisian network: from 1914 to 1977, more than 1000 km of new sewers were built.

At the end of World War I, the 50 km² of sewage fields were no longer sufficient to protect the Seine. A general sewage treatment programme, designed to meet the needs for 50 years, was drawn up and became state-approved in 1935: this was the beginning of industrial sewage treatment.

The aim was to carry all the Parisian wastewater to the Achères treatment plant using a network of effluent channels. Since then, the Achères plant has continued to grow. At the end of 1970, it was one of the biggest sewage treatment plants in Europe. Its actual capacity is more than 2 million cubic metres per day.

This programme has been gradually upgraded: modernization of the Achères and Noisy-le-Grand (a small station farther upstream) facilities, construction of a new plant at Valenton, and expansion of the Colombes experimental station.

Modernization now and in the future

The aims of the modernization programme launched by the Mayor of Paris in 1991 were: to protect the Seine from storm overflow pollution by reducing the amount of untreated water discharged directly into the Seine, to reinforce the existing sewers, to enable the network to function better.

This project, which is costing an estimated 152 million euros over the first 5 years, will include:

* the refurbishing of the old sewers in a bad condition,
* the renovation of pumping stations,
* the construction of new sewers,
* the installation of measuring devices and automated flow control management,
* the improving of the management of solid waste and grit,
* the development of the computerised network management system.

No other city in the world has a sewer network like the one found in Paris. It now has 2,100 kilometres of tunnels. It houses, in addition to the drinking and non drinking water mains, telecommunication cables, pneumatic cables and traffic light management cables.

Every day, 1.2 million cubic metres of wastewater have to be collected. Every year, 15,000 cubic metres of solid waste are taken out and disposed of.

The sewer in literature

The sewer system is quoted in "Les Misérables" (Part 5, "Jean Valjean"; Book II, "The Intestine of the Leviathan", ch.1, "The Land Impoverished by the Sea"): "...Paris has another Paris under herself; a Paris of sewers; which has its streets, its crossings, its squares, its blind alleys, its arteries, and its circulation, which is slime, minus the human form."

The sewer system plays a key part in H. L. Humes' novel "The Underground City." Humes, an American novelist, was a cofounder of The Paris Review.

Tours of the sewage system have been popular since the 1800s and are currently conducted at the sewers.

See also

* List of museums in Paris

External links

* [http://www.mtholyoke.edu/courses/rschwart/hist255-s01/mapping-paris/Paris_Sewers_Page.html France in the age of Les Misérables] - Brief history of the sewer system
* [http://www.paris.fr/portail/Environnement/Portal.lut?page_id=1313&document_type_id=5&document_id=2158&portlet_id=3139 Mairie de Paris] - French site of the Mayoral offices.