Brussels battles old prejudices as it frees unloved river from its vault
They didn't bother cleaning it up for that long because the stench down-river from Brussels went into a flemish area and when they did finally succumb to pressure from the flemish side to cleanup the stench of this river they mismanaged the effort and the project was late and had a minor corruption scandal.
Calling these prejudices "old" is a stretch, it's only in 2016 they saw that fishes could survive in the river.
In downtown Seoul, the Cheongyecheon stream was vaulted and paved over in the 1970s. People more or less entirely forgot it existed. In the early 2000s a program was put in place to tear up the roadway that sat on top of the stream and turn it into an urban park. The program was unpopular at the beginning because it eliminated valuable roads and cost almost a billion dollars to fix.
Today it's enormously popular, has won numerous global awards for urban redevelopment, and offers a wonderful quiet respite from the grind of the city.
Bonus, they found numerous ancient artifacts during the reclamation and integrated many of them into the system.
In Dallas, there's an old joke about the fish in the Trinity River swim backwards so they don't get the water in their eyes.
It always amazes me how there's all of the old black&white film of industrial waste just pouring into whatever water was nearby (river,lakes,etc). However, we know it still happens today, they just get more sneaky about it. Again, in Dallas, a slaughter house was found to be dumping blood and waste into the river by a drone flying over head and the color of the water had an obvious color change to it.
It's worth it. Montreal and it's surrounding cities neglected the river and canals, which supported local industry and transport, then used to dump toxic soils from digging the subway, or dumping untreated sewer water. After much cleanup, there are many spots where we can swim, kayak or even surf. It has completely changed some neighborhoods (Verdun, Saint-Henri, but also going from Bellerive to Boucherville islands).
Similarly, the Rhine, one of the largest rivers in Germany, recovered well after cleanup efforts in the 1980s: https://whatsupgermany.de/father-rhines-recovery/
In Boston, similar emotions pertain to the Charles River, which runs through it majestically. It’s currently swimmable on many days after decades of cleanup, but finding a Bostonian who would be comfortable taking a dip wouldn’t be easy. Same situation with the Boston Harbor
A map would be nice. More info https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Covering_of_the_Senne
In a way Copenhagen has done a similar thing. The harbour used to be a terrible mess in 1995 with sewage and whatnot going in but these days the water is so clean that swimming in the harbour became a thing. Last year the Diesel harbour busses were replaced by electric ships and the seafront is a place where tons of locals hang out and enjoy the city in summer.
Maybe, just maybe, we'll be able to uncover LadegĂĄrds Ă… and get rid of the terrible concrete street mess that is Ă…boulevard.
The sewer museum mentioned in the article is excellent. Easily on par with the Musée des égouts in Paris. I highly recommend it.
The south fork of the Chicago river was called bubbly creek. Because cow carcasses dumped there by the slaughter houses caused bubble to form — 50 years later!
I live next to the river, it's open here. But honestly it's just brown water and I have never seen a fish in there for 20 years. I still see pipes coming from houses into that river, so I wouldn't be surprised if some households their toilet water still flushes to it :P
This whole project feels completely useless to me. The part of the river they are uncovering is right next to the canal of Burssels and in the middle of an industrial zone. https://www.google.com/maps/@50.9027531,4.4087939,15.97z?hl=...
Other parts of the river they are discussing in the article are all right next to the canal and in either entirely build up or industrial areas.
The "dead" part of the river they are talking about is the one running under Brussels. Ther's always been an water cleaning station downstreem of Brussels so that Flanders didn't really get all the shit from Brussels.
Wow. Just wow. That any money would be spent on something like this in a city like that.
Brussels is the saddest, most dilapidated, neglected western European capital I’ve ever been to and I’ve been to many.
I mean it’s so filthy, so filthy that bud drivers refused to park their buses at one of the biggest train stations in the city because of the amount of human excrement from the homeless population.
Sure, dig up a river famous for being an open sewer… boggles the mind.
Free the River Fleet!