Officials knew that draining the canals wouldn’t be an easy process. Luckily, engineers were able to come up with an effective method that has worked well for the city for several decades.
To make everything easier and to first prepare, they set up a dam. Doing this would help with their next step: diverting over three million tons of water into the Seine.
Much unlike the Niagara Falls, the canal in Paris is actually drained on a somewhat regular basis. City officials decided to properly drain the canals every 10-15 years. After all, with it being in such a populated area, it is bound to become filled with debris that blocks the proper flow.
In fact, when they last drained it in 2001, they pulled out more than 40 tons of garbage – that’s over 80,000 pounds of trash! But it wasn’t just your typical cups and bottles and old furniture, etc. Authorities found some pretty questionable stuff during the operation.
Of course, even though they were bound to find a lot of trash that had been dumped over the past decade or so, they were also expecting to find some less…common stuff, too. So, what did the authorities uncover at the bottom of the Canal Saint-Martin?
Well, this time alone, they found more than 100 bicycles, as well as some motor scooters, a sewing mannequin and some World War I shot gun shells. Even more disturbing perhaps, they found a wheelchair, which was hopefully empty when it went into the water.
Draining the canal is not easy, either – or cheap. In fact, even though it has to be done every fifteen years or so, that doesn’t mean it happens overnight.
From start to finish, getting everything done, including draining it and cleaning out the junk and debris, it can take several months. Not to mention the many labor hours it takes to do everything, and that isn’t taking into consideration the costs, which can run upward of $10 million.
The actual dewatering began on the 4th day of January, and took several days to even clear enough of the liquid out to begin the next phase. Then, by the 7th, they were ready to begin sifting through all of the unburied trash…and treasure.
In such a crowded city, you can imagine all of the garbage that finds its way to the canal. The people of Paris were shocked by what they were seeing.