Parisian sewers

The Parisian sewer system dates back to the year 1370 when the first underground system was constructed under "rue Montmartre". Since then, consecutive French governments have enlarged the system to cover the city's population.

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 Bièvre 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, the first Parisian vaulted sewer network was built. It was 30 km long.

In 1855, as a part of his plan to improve the sanitation and traffic circulation in Paris, Napoleon III ordered the construction of new boulevards, aqueducts and sewers. His prefect for the Seine, Baron Haussmann, and the engineer Eugène 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 that was 600 km long in 1878. From 1880 to 1913, efforts were taken to connect Parisian buildings to the sewers (they were most at the time "connected to the city's clean water network and the rest had access to free neighborhood taps (fontaines)"). By 1914, 68% of all buildings in Paris had direct connections to the sewer. Research shows that this contributed to a decline in mortality.

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