Marine Tondelier criticizes the megabasin project in Puy-de-Dôme

The national secretary of Ecologists denounces the Billom megabasin project (Puy-de-Dôme). She will be present at the demonstration organized on Saturday by an environmentalist collective from the region.

The national secretary of Ecologists-EELV is going to the mobilization organized on Saturday May 11 in Billom, in Puy-de-Dôme, to contest a project to build two megabasins. “We must stop pillaging our water resources, because the water taken by these 36 farmers will be less water for the more than 5,000 other farmers, for individuals”declared Marine Tondelier this Saturday on franceinfo.

franceinfo: This project is supposed to irrigate 36 farms, representing some 800 hectares. Why do you think the farmers’ arguments are inadmissible? ?

Marine Tondelier: This will irrigate 36 farmers out of more than 5,000 farmers in the department. So it is really a tiny minority of farmers who will benefit from this project, farmers ready to put 300,000 or 400,000 euros per farm on the table. These are not just any farmers. In fact, this basin project is a story of monopolization, it is a story of intensive agriculture in this Limagne plain. These are ancient swamps, which never lacked water, until the hedges were cut down, agriculture was intensified, and the number of trees was reduced. Those who have brought us this far want to go even further, to privatize water in a mega-basin. This is the equivalent of 46 football fields which will be artificialized, to put 2.3 million cubic meters of water there, that is to say the equivalent of 613 Olympic swimming pools. This is water that will be monopolized from Allier. This also poses a lot of problems for the ecosystem of this river, salmon migration, this is not trivial.

The water tables are currently at a fairly high level in Puy-de-Dôme. What solutions can be provided to farmers who request these basins? ?

This year, there is no shortage of water overall in the country. This is not true everywhere, but on average it is the case. But if we were in 2023 and these basins were in operation, we wouldn’t even have enough to fill them. We couldn’t even have filled them half full, since there was a lack of water. The absurdity is that we can fill these basins when we have a lot of water, when we don’t need it. The solutions are simple: agriculture cannot be above nature. We must stop pillaging our water resources, because the water taken by these 36 farmers will be less water for the more than 5,000 other farmers, for individuals. Agriculture must return within planetary limits, so we must prioritize subsistence agriculture, which makes it possible to feed the French with quality food. There are also no organic or non-conventional farms in these 36 farms which will benefit from the basin.

“What is produced with these basins is corn, not even for human food, not even for France but for export, speculation.”

Marine Tondelier

at franceinfo

Recently, the government announced a new agricultural law with the acceleration of 100 water reservoir projects. Haven’t the environmentalists lost the battle over the basins? ?

I don’t think so, since when we announce more than 3,000 people in Puy-de-Dôme during this long weekend, it means that the mobilization is very much alive and the partners in this fight are extremely numerous. I think that the battle of opinion is progressing on the subject of mega-basins as we talk about them and we talk about them thanks to these mobilizations. I thank the people who organize them very much, it is extremely important for us to be interested in the project, because everything is done so that we do not know that these projects are only for the benefit of a few and on the backs of everyone else. I would like to point out that this is done with public money. Of the 25 million euros of this project, there is money from the State, the Region, Europe and it does not even concern half of the farmers. The question of where we put public money arises. When it is used for projects against biodiversity and against us, it is still complicated.