widthThe winding Seine in Paris has always been the inspiration for some of the greatest romantic art and literature. For the past 150 years, the unpopular Seine that passes through Brussels has been buried under concrete and has been condemned by the locals as It’s just sewers and disease and misfortune.
As a source of ongoing flood risk and cholera, it was arched, built and hidden. However, now that the Belgian capital is preparing to hold an inauguration ceremony, officials hope this will help force Brusselsers to rethink their prejudice against this waterway for centuries.
After 1,966 tons of concrete have been demolished, the 200-meter-long section of the Senne River near the outskirts of Buda in the north of Brussels will be officially opened to nature. Part of the construction of the new bank comes from gravel from its former tomb.
This will be the first step in dismantling the concrete, which envelops two-thirds of the Senner River in the Brussels area. Officials admit that the ancient beliefs are still surprisingly strong in the collective consciousness of the city.
“Brussels’ traditional memory is that the river has a bad reputation,” said Martin Ohse of Brussels Environment, the regional government agency responsible for the city’s surface water. “People remember that the meaning of sewers has existed for 400 years, but now we need to change that mentality. Even people who have never seen the river, they almost intuitively say that the river is not good. So we need to change at this point.”
Until the 19th century, human feces in Brussels were Close the sludge, Who will dump waste into the pool, and over time, it will turn into urban fertilizer and sell it to farmers.
But the huge population growth in Brussels and elsewhere in Belgium led to the collapse of the human excrement market. As Brussels has a network of canals for the transportation of goods, Senne is seen as a clear outlet to solve the growing sewage problem.
“Brussels is simply [had made] According to the scholar Ananda Kohlbrenner in her seminal book “From Fertilizer to Waste, Land to River: The History of Excreta”, city managers dumped sewage in the Seine to take advantage of nature. Law. In Brussels.
The fear of the subsequent outbreak of cholera and the desire of the ruling elites to razor the slums on the banks of the Seine and build an endless Parisian boulevard on its waters were such that the subsequent burial of the river was seen as a sign of progress. The upper echelons of society.
The covering of the Seine was so popular that King Leopold II of Belgium laid the first stone in the center of the Lemmonier-Anspach section on May 6, 1867, and he focused on rebuilding his relatively new The capital of the country rivals European powers.
“This is first and foremost a victory for the bourgeoisie in the 19th century,” said local historian Roel Jacobs. “Their desire is to flatten popular neighborhoods and create a new environment for urban elites.”
The works on the river were carried out between 1867 and 1871, but Bruxellois’ discomfort with their waterways will continue. The part north of the city was recently arched in 1996, this time to mitigate potential leakage of gasoline stored locally.
However, it was not until 2000 that attempts were made to purify the wastewater flowing into the foul-smelling waters of Senne. A 2010 study found that there was not a single fish in the river, which was described as “dead” by local managers at the time.
By 2016, the first attempt to purify wastewater began to bear fruit, and large numbers of fish were found. In 2019, in Anderlecht, a commune in the southwest of Brussels, Boulevard Paepsem has opened a section of road conditions and accessibility.
Subsequently, it received funding from the European Union and sought permission to demolish the concrete in the north near Buda. This task is about to be completed, and it is planned to start work in 2023. The 600-meter section of the Senne River in Maximilian was found to stop in the city center. .
“We will reorganize the park and let the river pass through it. This is the only part of the center that is covered by a green area,” Ohse said. “The other part is in the boulevard or Midi [rail] The station, so we can’t destroy the station just to have the river. It is in the center, so many more people can see the river and enjoy it. “
The works in the park will be completed in 2025. Other potential projects include providing people with river views at the level of the Brussels Underground Sewage Museum near Midi Station and reopening the economic zone in northern Brussels, known as Schaerbeek-Formation, within 40 hectares (100 acres).
Ohse said that there is currently no guarantee that the water quality is sufficient for people to swim in Senne. “But maybe one day,” he added. “By reducing the amount of waste entering the river, you will purify your water, increase the oxygen in the water, and fish and plants will come back. If you want to include a river in the city, it needs to be clean. Otherwise, people will treat it as a sewer. We can see that nature is regaining control of the river.”
