Can Grenoble do better in terms of fountains and water points?

There’s no need to praise the “islands and cool points” throughout the municipal magazine, if it’s to leave the city’s fountains at half mast! It was, at the beginning of July and after the June heat wave, the questioning of several residents’ associations in the capital, including Vivre à Grenoble, which even pointed out, she said, inconsistencies, even lies in the municipal communications. “We have a heritage that is aging, on many emblematic fountains“answers the town hall, which says it is doing everything it can.

Technical or health reasons…

It is true that in the city center in particular, the non-functioning of certain fountains challenges the walker. Place Victor-Hugo, place de Gordes or even at the corner of Alsace Lorraine and Gambetta the fountains are dry. “The problems are diverse“explains Gilles Namur, Grenoble deputy for “biodiversity and freshness” in particular. Without going into details and without being exhaustive: “Victor Hugo’s basin is leaking“, “the Notre-Dame fountain is a work of art in danger“, “Ihe “ball” fountain in Alsace-Lorraine has been heavily vandalized“. Sometimes the water jets are not designed for anything other than decoration and do not support misuse. This is the case with the water jets on the Esplanade Alain Le Ray at the Caserne de Bonne. “They are in a closed circuit and sanitaryly it poses a problem when children in diapers, dogs, come to cool off there“. And they got used to it!”So we have to stop them when it’s too hot“. So many things that delay, prevent, hinder, the start-up of water points at the end of the summer. “It should also be rememberedsays Gilles Namur, that the fountains can only be opened and tested from the end of the cold period. There, this year, it is very particular: _between the last snowfalls and the periods of high heat, we only had three weeks with teams that rotated to try to fill up as many fountains as possible, as quickly as possible_. It dragged on because we had a lot of difficulties on each of the fountains“. There was also a big concern about the lake Jean Verlhac in Villeneuve, which had to be dealt with as a priority when the festivities of July 14 in Grenoble are precisely planned in the park of a district which turns 50 this year.

A multi-year investment plan

If it is necessary to restore then it is necessary “a plan fountains” asks Vivre à Grenoble. By advancing in particular through its president Bruno de Lescure that the “4 million euros from the communication budget of Grenoble European Green Capital 2022“, or the “120,000 euros from the pedestrianization of Cours Berriat last year“could have been used for something else. For Eric de Gulludec, another member of Vivre à Grenoble, there is”discourse on the one hand and practice on the other, and the practice is that we see that there are a lot of installations that don’t work, whereas we are in periods when there are has more and more episodes of heat, where not everyone has the chance to go and cool off by the sea or in the mountains, while the city of Grenoble is still not a city ​​necessarily very pleasant, the summer buried in its basin“. There is money for fountains and water points, answers Gilles Namur. “There is a multi-year investment plan for fountains and basins, the amount of which has just been increased this year to 450,000 euros against 300,000 previously“.”We are also looking at our organization with perhaps a call for external service providers for engineering and maintenance, in particular because these are very specific skills…“Otherwise there are estimates in progress, there again a consultation of the architects of the buildings of France, here repairs scheduled for 2023 and finally degraded foggers which will be repaired and returned to service”this week“. In short, things are moving forward.

How many fountains, misters and water points are there in Grenoble?

“Except that the town hall actually disguises the realitysays Bruno de Lescure, from the moment when it is said that there are only seventeen fountains, that twelve are working and that there are three that are being repaired because the truth is that there there are 40 fountains!“(see below). ” It’s a communication error. Clearly“, replies Gilles Namur. “Of the 40 fountains in question there are old basins, old fountains, which have been completely abandoned for a very long time and which will not be given water again, that is clear and clean. Because sometimes there isn’t even a water circuit anymore“. There remains, to cool off this summer in Grenoble, the large number of Bayard standpipes, the green fountains, which deliver fresh and drinkable water and which are 200 in number spread over the city.. Of which only “twenty” are not operational according to the elected official