Tens of thousands of fish have been moved by Paris authorities to clean up the Canal Saint-Martin, the popular waterway commissioned by Napoleon that attracts thousands of tourists and revellers. The clean-up has been going on for the past three months, and it has seen fish -- ranging from catfish to a 16-kilogram (35 pound) carp -- transported to the River Seine as the canal in the trendy 10th district was emptied.
'The haul has been good,' said Marion Escarpit in an article published in Yahoo. Escarpit is from the local anglers' association. 'We have found very few fish that are sick or malformed. That's surprising when you see what's there at the bottom of the canal,' he added while emptying a bucketful of fish and rubbish.
The draining of the waterway also gives the authorities a chance to repair the canal's walls and renovate the locks. The rubbish tossed into the canal includes beer bottles, bicycles, toilet bowls, rolled-up carpets and weapons, including a sawn-off gun.
A hydrobiologist Romain Zeiller, one of the officials involved in the project joked that they hadn't found a body yet. The last clean-up in 2001 yielded a formidable amount of detritus including motorbikes and bathtubs.
But the quality of the water has improved over the years and marine life in the canal has burgeoned. Escarpit said there were only two types of fish in Paris in the 1980s but now there are already 35.
The Canal Saint-Martin is quite popular with Parisians and visitors alike for its arched bridges, locks and well-connected surrounding neighborhood. Workers have begun the process of draining the canal and will get down to the messy task of removing the waste.
Since the canal is located in the heart of a neighborhood, there's no way that the debris can be removed, other than by emptying the canal and physically getting to the bottom of it. The operation will last until early April and will cost the city 9.5 million euros ($10 million).
The waterway was commissioned in 1804 to transport goods into the capital as well as provide it with fresh water.
This article is copyrighted by Travelers Today, the travel news leader
