October 2, 2002
French Sewer Balls
I caught a bit of a Discovery Channel show on sewers (no, really) and learned about the fascinating role that sewer balls play in the Parisian sewers. They're huge, wooden spheres (10-feet in diameter isn't uncommon) that are slid into the round sewer tunnels to push solid waste through the tunnel and toward the treatment plant.
Here's a picture I found. It's from someone's vacation pictures, which explains Bob and Marvin in the foreground.
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