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For months, the wind farm project off the island of Oléron has crystallized local opposition, from fishermen to defenders of this protected area, classified Nature 2000. The public consultation ends at the end of February. The State will give its final answer this summer, and the stakes are high: supply renewable electricity to more than one million inhabitants.
The island of Oléron, its dunes, its fine sand and its beaches, from where one comes to contemplate a horizon as far as the eye can see. It’s an exceptional site, but in a few years, it’s another postcard that the Charentais will perhaps have before their eyes. The State plans to install, about thirty kilometers from the coast, a field of wind turbines, about sixty in total, visible from the beach. “We don’t come to the beach to look at the horizon and see wind turbines”, disputes a resident. “I’m for green energy, but I’m not sure it’s one”, asks a local.
Dominica Chevillon, vice-president of the League for the Protection of Birds (LPO), has been fighting for years to defend these protected areas. The future wind farm would be located in the heart of this maritime area, which alone contains no less than seven nature reserves. A few kilometers inland is the town of Saint-Pierre-d’Oléron, 7,000 inhabitants in winter, 65,000 in summer. In his office, the mayor Christophe Sueur, still does not get used to it. “It is an influence of our natural space”, he says. He hopes to have a motion of rejection voted in early February in the City Council.