Paris Sewer Museum
Encyclopedia
History
Until the Middle AgesMiddle Ages
The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...
, the drinking water in Paris was taken from the river Seine
Seine
The Seine is a -long river and an important commercial waterway within the Paris Basin in the north of France. It rises at Saint-Seine near Dijon in northeastern France in the Langres plateau, flowing through Paris and into the English Channel at Le Havre . It is navigable by ocean-going vessels...
. The wastewater was poured onto fields or unpaved streets, and finally filtered back into the Seine.
Around 1200, Phillipe Auguste
Philip II of France
Philip II Augustus was the King of France from 1180 until his death. A member of the House of Capet, Philip Augustus was born at Gonesse in the Val-d'Oise, the son of Louis VII and his third wife, Adela of Champagne...
had the Parisian streets paved, incorporating a drain for waste water in their middle.
In 1370 Hugues Aubriot
Hugues Aubriot
Hugues Aubriot was a French administrator and heretic. Aubriot was Provost of Paris under Charles V. He built the Bastille in 1370-1383. He was a capable administrator who built the first sewers in Paris, and strengthened the City's fortifications...
, 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. On at least two occasions in the late 1700s, Paris refused to build an updated water system that scientists had studied. Women were actually carrying water from the river Seine to their residences in buckets. Voltaire wrote about it, saying that they "will not begrudge money for a Comic Opera, but will complain about building aqueducts worthy of Augustus". Louis Pasteur, himself lost three children to typhoid. Under Napoleon I
Napoleon I of France
Napoleon Bonaparte was a French military and political leader during the latter stages of the French Revolution.As Napoleon I, he was Emperor of the French from 1804 to 1815...
, the first Parisian vaulted sewer network was built that was 30 km long.
In 1850, the prefect for the Seine Baron Haussmann
Baron Haussmann
Georges-Eugène Haussmann, commonly known as Baron Haussmann , was a French civic planner whose name is associated with the rebuilding of Paris...
and the engineer Eugène Belgrand
Eugène Belgrand
Eugène Belgrand was a French engineer who made significant contributions to the modernization of the Parisian sewer system during the 19th century rebuilding of Paris. Much of Belgrand's work remains in use today.-Civil engineering:...
, 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
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
, 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
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
. 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 described in Victor HugoVictor Hugo
Victor-Marie Hugo was a Frenchpoet, playwright, novelist, essayist, visual artist, statesman, human rights activist and exponent of the Romantic movement in France....
's 1862 novel, Les Misérables
Les Misérables
Les Misérables , translated variously from the French as The Miserable Ones, The Wretched, The Poor Ones, The Wretched Poor, or The Victims), is an 1862 French novel by author Victor Hugo and is widely considered one of the greatest novels of the nineteenth century...
(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."
Le Fantôme de l'Opéra (English: The Phantom of the Opera
The Phantom of the Opera
Le Fantôme de l'Opéra is a novel by French writer Gaston Leroux. It was first published as a serialisation in "Le Gaulois" from September 23, 1909 to January 8, 1910...
) is a novel by French writer Gaston Leroux
Gaston Leroux
Gaston Louis Alfred Leroux was a French journalist and author of detective fiction.In the English-speaking world, he is best known for writing the novel The Phantom of the Opera , which has been made into several film and stage productions of the same name, notably the 1925 film starring Lon...
. It was first published as a serialisation
Serial (literature)
In literature, a serial is a publishing format by which a single large work, most often a work of narrative fiction, is presented in contiguous installments—also known as numbers, parts, or fascicles—either issued as separate publications or appearing in sequential issues of a single periodical...
, in Le Gaulois
Le Gaulois
Le Gaulois was a French daily newspaper, founded in 1868 by Edmond Tarbe and Henri de Pene. After a printing stoppage, it was revived by Arthur Meyer in 1882 with notable collaborators Paul Bourget, Alfred Grévin, Abel Hermant, and Ernest Daudet...
, from September 23, 1909 to January 8, 1910.
The sewer system plays a key part in H. L. Humes
Harold L. Humes
Harold Louis Humes, Jr. was known as HL Humes in his books, and usually as "Doc" Humes in life. He was the originator of The Paris Review literary magazine, author of two novels in the late 1950s, and a gregarious fixture of the cultural scene in Paris, London, and New York in the 1950s and early...
' 1958 novel, The Underground City. Humes, an American novelist, was a cofounder of The Paris Review
Paris Review
The Paris Review is a literary quarterly founded in 1953 by Harold L. Humes, Peter Matthiessen and George Plimpton. Plimpton edited the Review from its founding until his death in 2003. In its first five years, The Paris Review published works by Jack Kerouac, Philip Larkin, V. S...
.
In Lee Goldberg
Lee Goldberg
Lee Goldberg is an American author, screenwriter and producer, known for his work on several different TV crime series, including Diagnosis: Murder, A Nero Wolfe Mystery, Hunter, Spenser: For Hire, Martial Law, She-Wolf of London, SeaQuest, 1-800-Missing, The Glades and Monk...
's mystery novel Mr. Monk is Miserable
Mr. Monk is Miserable
Mr. Monk is Miserable is the seventh novel in the Monk mystery book series by writer Lee Goldberg. It was published on December 2, 2008.-Plot summary:Natalie wants a break so she blackmails Monk in going to Paris, France...
, based on the television series Monk
Monk (TV series)
Monk is an American comedy-drama detective mystery television series created by Andy Breckman and starring Tony Shalhoub as the titular character, Adrian Monk. It originally ran from 2002 to 2009 and is primarily a mystery series, although it has dark and comic touches.The series debuted on July...
, Adrian Monk
Adrian Monk
Adrian Monk is a fictional character portrayed by Tony Shalhoub and the protagonist of the USA Network television series Monk. He is a renowned former homicide detective for the San Francisco Police Department...
, who suffers from severe mysophobia
Mysophobia
Mysophobia is a term used to describe a pathological fear of contamination and germs. Someone who has such a fear is referred to as a mysophobe. The term was introduced by Dr. William Alexander Hammond in 1879 when describing a case of obsessive-compulsive disorder exhibited in repeatedly washing...
, surprises his assistant, Natalie Teeger
Natalie Teeger
Natalie J. Teeger is a fictional character on the American crime drama Monk. She becomes Adrian Monk's personal assistant midway through the third season of the show...
, with his desire to see the Paris sewers, calling them a monumental and inspiring achievement in sanitation.
Museum
Le Musée des Égouts de Paris, or the Paris Sewer Museum, is dedicated to the sewer systemSanitary sewer
A sanitary sewer is a separate underground carriage system specifically for transporting sewage from houses and commercial buildings to treatment or disposal. Sanitary sewers serving industrial areas also carry industrial wastewater...
of Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
. Tours of the sewage system have been popular since the 1800s and are currently conducted at the sewers. Visitors are able to walk upon raised walkways directly above the sewage itself. The entrance is near the Pont de l'Alma
Pont de l'Alma
Pont de l'Alma is an arch bridge in Paris, crossing the Seine. It was named to commemorate the Battle of Alma during the Crimean War, in which the Franco-British alliance achieved victory over the Russian army on September 20, 1854....
.
(coordinates: 48°51′45.4"N 2°18′9.1"E).