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For the past year, the winegrowers of the Clape massif have benefited from irrigation which takes its source from the waters of a wastewater treatment plant in Gruissan.
There are Carignan, Grenache and Syrah: 80 hectares in total, on the Clape massif (Aude). All these grape varieties are irrigated with water treated by the Gruissan wastewater treatment plant. Drip irrigation, operational for a year. Winemakers order it from an app. “It’s true that the arrival of water, the possibility for us to connect to this network and to be able to irrigate since last year, has been a relief. Because we were starting to have a vine that was dropping“, explains Frédéric Vrinat, director of the Gruissan wine cooperative.
A long-term project
The Gruissan wastewater treatment plant devotes 20% of its treated water to viticultural irrigation, ie 60,000 m³ of water, which benefits from specific sanitation. The Greater Narbonne conurbation took almost eight years to bring this project to fruition. Now she wants to pick up the pace. These waters were usually discharged into the Mediterranean by seaside treatment plants.