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Canada's Niagara Region in State of Emergency Over Influx of Eclipse Viewers

A view of Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada, is shown, Friday, March 29, 2024, as seen from Niagara Falls, N.Y. (Carlos Osorio/The Canadian Press via AP)
A view of Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada, is shown, Friday, March 29, 2024, as seen from Niagara Falls, N.Y. (Carlos Osorio/The Canadian Press via AP)
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Canada's Niagara Region in State of Emergency Over Influx of Eclipse Viewers

A view of Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada, is shown, Friday, March 29, 2024, as seen from Niagara Falls, N.Y. (Carlos Osorio/The Canadian Press via AP)
A view of Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada, is shown, Friday, March 29, 2024, as seen from Niagara Falls, N.Y. (Carlos Osorio/The Canadian Press via AP)

Ontario’s Niagara Region has declared a state of emergency as it prepares to welcome up to a million visitors for the solar eclipse in early April, The Associated Press reported.
The total solar eclipse on April 8 will be the first to touch the province since 1979, and Niagara Falls was declared by National Geographic to be one of the best places to see it.
The city is in the path of totality, where the moon will entirely block the sun's rays for a few minutes. Niagara Falls Mayor Jim Diodati said earlier in March that he expects the most visitors his city has ever seen in a single day.
The regional municipality of Niagara is proactively invoking a state of emergency to prepare for the event, AP said. The declaration announced Thursday sets in motion some additional planning tools to prepare for the day, which could involve major traffic jams, heavier demands on emergency services and cell phone network overloads.
The eclipse will reach Mexico’s Pacific coast in the morning, cut diagonally across the United States from Texas to Maine, and exit in eastern Canada by late afternoon. Most of the rest of the continent will see a partial eclipse.

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Latest Tests Show Seine Water Quality Was Substandard When Paris Mayor Took a Dip

Boats carrying members of delegations sail along the Seine during the opening ceremony of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games on July 26, 2024. (AFP)
Boats carrying members of delegations sail along the Seine during the opening ceremony of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games on July 26, 2024. (AFP)
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Latest Tests Show Seine Water Quality Was Substandard When Paris Mayor Took a Dip

Boats carrying members of delegations sail along the Seine during the opening ceremony of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games on July 26, 2024. (AFP)
Boats carrying members of delegations sail along the Seine during the opening ceremony of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games on July 26, 2024. (AFP)

Tests results released Friday showed the water quality in the River Seine was slightly below the standards needed to authorize swimming — just as the Paris Olympics start.

Heavy rain during the opening ceremony revived concerns over whether the long-polluted waterway will be clean enough to host swimming competitions, since water quality is deeply linked with the weather in the French capital.

Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo took a highly publicized dip last week in a bid to ease fears. The Seine will be used for marathon swimming and triathlon.

Daily water quality tests measure levels of fecal bacteria known as E. coli.

Tests by monitoring group Eau de Paris show that at the Bras Marie, E. coli levels were then above the safe limit of 900 colony-forming units per 100 milliliters determined by European rules on June 17, when the mayor took a dip.

The site reached a value of 985 on the day the mayor swam with Paris 2024 chief Tony Estanguet and the top government official for the Paris region, Marc Guillaume, joined her, along with swimmers from local swimming clubs.

At two other measuring points further downstream, the results were below the threshold.

The statement by Paris City Hall and the prefecture of the Paris region noted that water quality last week was in line with European rules six days out of seven on the site which is to host the Olympic swimming competitions.

It noted that "the flow of the Seine is highly unstable due to regular rainfall episodes and remains more than twice the usual flow in summer," explaining fluctuating test results.

Swimming in the Seine has been banned for over a century. Since 2015, organizers have invested $1.5 billion to prepare the Seine for the Olympics and to ensure Parisians have a cleaner river after the Games. The plan included constructing a giant underground water storage basin in central Paris, renovating sewer infrastructure, and upgrading wastewater treatment plants.