In the north-west of Alsace, a road link project between Lorentzen, Diemeringen and the A4 motorway, south of Sarre-Union, is mobilizing villagers, association members and naturalists. They want to avoid the destruction of tens of hectares of land for the benefit of a road, as is happening elsewhere in Alsace.
“We don’t want what happened in Châtenois“said bluntly the members of associations for the defense of nature and the environment, present this Saturday, June 10, at the entrance to Lorentzen.
Among the hundred people gathered, there were also residents of several surrounding villages, eager to understand what is planned.
It is in fact a project to build a new road, 5.8 kilometers long, which would link the A4 south of Sarre-Union and Rimsdorf, to Diemeringen and Lorentzen. Cost: 16 million euros.
Particularity, the project dates from the 1970s. It was the President Valéry Giscard D’Estaing who had promised this connection, at the time of the inauguration of the A 4. A point which poses a problem for the defenders of nature. According to them, adding this road no longer meets current environmental requirements, which are the objectives of reducing greenhouse gases and reducing land take, within seven years.
“This forty-five-year-old route no longer meets the greenhouse gas reduction we need to achieve by 2030.”
Gilbert Quirin, Member of the ANAB-Association Nature Alsace Bossue
The construction of this road would remove 41 hectares of agricultural and natural land, indicates the report of Alsace Nature. The association for the defense of the environment invites as many people as possible to consult the file on the prefecture’s website and to give their opinion by e-mail ([email protected]) before Tuesday, June 13, noon. The paper file is also visible in the town hall of Diemeringen, on the days and hours of opening of the town hall.
The people mobilized in Lorentzen would like this time that environmental protection considerations are taken into account in time. They evoke the works of the bypass of Châtenois, near Sélestat, in the center of Alsace. The work there lasted four years, until May 12th. That day, the Administrative Court of Strasbourg decided to take into account the alerts issued by Alsace Nature, four years earlier. All that remained was to install the asphalt and the noise barriers. The natural areas had given way to the layout. Considering this stop absurd at this stage of the works, the elected officials and the inhabitants demonstrated for the resumption of the works.
For its part, Alsace Nature, depositary of the appeal, declared that it regretted the 4-year delay set by the courts to decide on the bypass of Châtenois, because there was an urgent need to save natural areas now destroyed. But the director of the association, Stéphane Giraud, said “mostly regret that the petitioners do not listen better to the alerts issued and that they have chosen to launch the works when the situation was not legally resolved.”
In Alsace-Hunchback, opponents of the project believe that to save nature from destruction, it is necessary to mobilize in time. A petition with the signatures of citizens against the road project will also be delivered on Tuesday June 13 at noon, in the town hall of Diemeringen.
“We don’t need this connection, we have enough roads here“, say some. “It will be more pollution and less nature“, insist the others.
Roland Gissinger, president of the Nature Alsace Bossue Association, as for him precise. “The proposed offsets would not be enough, because some species here are already weakened by agricultural practices and climate change and other numbers are low.. Any change, and in particular the bleeding that would be made in the middle of these territories, would fragment the biotope of these species and threaten them with extinction.
For the wetlands, the account would not be there either according to him, in terms of compensatory zones. “Compensatory measures for aquatic species will not be significant enough to prevent pollution from reaching the streams that harbor these species. So they risk being poisoned by releases linked to this route. In winter, for example, there will be de-icing salt, 1.6 tonnes per pass, and all year round, heavy metals, cadmium and zinc among others, released by traffic. This is above all what we fear, because the rare and protected species here are species from environments poor in pollution, which need balanced and natural environments.
Originally, this road was intended to strengthen the links between the Moselle and Alsace. Today, while some would be delighted to gain ten minutes to reach the A4 motorway from the villages of Diemeringen or Lorentzen, others see an aberration in a project, thought up 45 to 50 years ago.
The public inquiry, under the law on water is open until Tuesday, June 13, noon.