Haro on the mega basins. About 4,000 people mobilized on Saturday, October 29, against the construction in Sainte-Soline (Deux-Sèvres) of a huge artificial water reserve of 720,000 m3, a volume equivalent to 288 Olympic swimming pools. The rally ended with dozens of wounded among the demonstrators and the gendarmes.
The site is part of a project to install nearly 16 reservoirs in the department. These basins must meet the irrigation needs of agriculture and livestock. To fill these artificial reservoirs, it is planned to pump the water tables during the winter to reduce water withdrawals during the summer months and allow farmers to better cope with periods of drought.
Opponents of the project believe that these giant reservoirs have harmful consequences for the environment. The collective Bassines Non Merci denounces the risk of drying up of waterways, accelerated evaporation, or even uncontrolled pumping of groundwater. Opponents also accuse farmers of not respecting the environmental commitments they have made in return for their right of access to water from the basins.
“These farmers gathered in a cooperative in Deux-Sèvres (…) had to commit to ban pesticides, to get out of a certain number of destructive crops. No commitment has been kept, we are in a deception” , declared the EELV deputy of Val-d’Oise Aurélien Taché, Wednesday, November 2, on Public Senate.
@publicsenat #basins “It had been said that if these farmers had these water reservoirs, they had to commit to getting out of pesticides, out of a certain number of destructive crops… No commitment was kept: we are in a deception ! » pic.twitter.com/6e1QUEi12w
— Aurélien Tache (@Aurelientache) November 2, 2022
Have the farmers really failed in their obligations? A memorandum of understanding, signed in 2018 by the prefecture, the chambers of agriculture, local authorities and environmental defense associations, requires them to keep a certain number of environmental commitments.
These can take many forms. “The conversion to organic farming, the use of mechanical weeding techniques, the increase in crop rotation, the diversification of plantations, the reduction in the use of pesticides”, lists François Pétorin, administrator of the Coop de l’Eau 79, a private company that manages the infrastructure of the reservoirs.
For environmental protection associations, the results have so far been mixed. For pesticides, the observation is clear. During the installation of the first artificial reservoir at Mauzé-sur-le-Mignon, “no operator has made a commitment to reduce pesticides, when this file should have served as an example”sighs Patrick Picaud, president of the Nature Environnement 17 association. However, the overall commitment set for all the operators participating in the project consisted of a 50% reduction in the use of pesticides.
In a report presented on February 9, 2022 (PDF document), the prefecture of Deux-Sèvres notes a 10% reduction in the use of pesticides over the first phase of the project. A decrease due to the conversion to organic of a single operator, “none of the conventional farmers having made a commitment to reduce pesticides”, underlines Michel Buntz, president of the Collective of citizens for the respect of the environment on their territory Val-du-Mignon (CCRET).
For the spokesman of the Bassines Non Merci collective, Jean-Jacques Guillet, these meager results are explained by the nature of the protocol which did not “no legal value” and by commitments that are not “not very constraining”. The text allows an operator to choose between reducing his use of phytosanitary products within five years and carrying out “ecological corridors in priority areas” (for example, with flowering fallow areas). According to Michel Buntz, it is “impossible” to achieve a 50% reduction in pesticide use in this second way, because “corridor surfaces are very small compared to cultivated areas”.
Other commitments, on the other hand, seem to have translated into more tangible results. The prefecture announces in its February report that the target for planting hedges has been exceeded, with nearly 18 km planted, more than double the initial length envisaged. “We can’t get anything” of these figures, judges however Patrick Picaud, president of Nature Environnement 17. For him, the ecological effectiveness of these hedges can only be assessed with regard to the size of the developed plots, which is not “not known”for lack of “transparency”.
In the absence of precise data, it remains difficult to measure the achievement of environmental objectives. “The protocol provides for the establishment of an observatory responsible for monitoring commitments every year, but in particular because of Covid-19, it is not yet operational”, underlines François-Marie Pellerin, vice-president of the Coordination for the defense of the Marais poitevin, an association signatory of the protocol. Several associations, including the CCRET, have left the project’s governance bodies, denouncing a lack of transparency and guarantees on ecological commitments.
“We agree that the project is not going fast enough, and therefore necessarily neither are the environmental commitments”recognizes François Pétorin. “But today only one reserve out of 16 has been built.” The engagements “will be realized as the project progresses”defends the administrator of the Coop de l’Eau 79.