The claim of the mayor of Rome de Tiber swimmer in five years has met skepticism | Italy

Rome hopes to welcome swimmers in the Tiber river within five years, announced the mayor of the city, inspired by Paris, where the Seine was reopened for the public bath this summer for the first time in a century.

During a visit Thursday at the Osaka Exo in Japan, Roberto Gualtieri said that a working group had been created to study the feasibility of the cleaning project.

“We are happy to have already established that this is an entirely feasible objective: in five years, we will be able to swim in the Tiber,” said Gualtieri.

But Italian media and experts reacted with skepticism, suggesting that it could take enough time to reduce current pollution to an acceptable level, especially in a country where public works can have notoriously long time ladders.

Until the 1960s, the Romans swam regularly in the river, but pollution prompted the authorities to introduce restrictions. Today, swimming is strictly prohibited, fines reaching hundreds of euros, although a long -year tradition survives in which divers dive from one of the bridges of Rome in cold waters below.

GUALTIERI said that because pollution rates in the Tiber are lower than those previously recorded in the Seine, the Roman operation, if it continued, would be cheaper than its Parisian precursor of 1.4 billion euros (1.2 billion pounds Sterling).

However, the Italian capital river is far from being a virgin. In April, scientists from the TARA Microplastics Mission published results on European pollution of the navigable channels which showed that the TIBER had an average of three microplastic particles per cubic meter. This can be well below the more than 20 particles per cube meter recorded in the Ganges of India, but it is still far from reassuring.

Additional research in September 2024 by the Italian Institute for Environmental Protection and Research (ISPRA) revealed that the Tiber wore more floating waste – mainly plastic – in the sea than any other Italian river, as well as disturbing concentrations of ammonia and fecal bacteria.

“The health risks linked to pollution in the Tiber and in the interior waters are extremely high,” said Alessandro Miani, president of the Italian Society of Environmental Medicine. “The presence of fecal bacteria such as They showed cold Can trigger gastrointestinal infections in humans, with symptoms such as diarrhea and vomiting. Contact with contaminated water can also cause skin and eye infections, resulting in rashes and eye irritation. »»

The Paris project was decades in preparation. Although the Seine was used for swimming events during the 2024 Olympic Games, the concerns about water quality have persisted. Several events have been postponed due to High And coli Levels, while some athletes have taken precautionary drugs before competition.

Overall, the Italian media were not convinced by the Tiber’s turned Renaissance. “The road to make the tiber nagable in five years is anything but downhill. For the moment, this remains a distant objective,” wrote Roma today.

At the end of July, when Gualtieri raised the prospect of making the river nagible, the National Daily La Repubblica ran with the title: “A swimmer? A long and expensive trip – if he never begins.”

The newspaper highlighted a much smaller project – which makes the lake in the EUR district of Rome, which is swimming – which has a price of around 8 million euros and a calendar of at least five years. “The Tiber will take much more time,” concluded the Repubblica.

Reuters contributed to this report.