2023-07-05 20:30:06
Is this the beginning of a way out of the crisis in the explosive file the mega-basins of the Sèvre Niortaise basin, that of Sainte-Soline in particular? It’s hard to predict, but the consensual vote of the Loire-Brittany basin committee on Tuesday July 4 marks a turning point that could prove decisive. By 137 votes and 1 abstention, the members of this body – generally presented as a “Water Parliament” where 190 actors representing the different users (State, local authorities, economic sectors, associations) meet – approved a motion which encourages us to take up the 2018 memorandum of understanding from top to bottom. The latter had led to the project to create sixteen very large reservoirs in order to store 6 million cubic meters for irrigating farmers. But it had also aroused determined opposition interspersed with repeated demonstrations, which have given rise to clashes since 2022, in the name of the fight against the grabbing of water by a few operators.
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Even if his opinions are not necessarily followed by the Water Agency – which finances 70% of the infrastructure for agricultural storage reserves, estimated at more than 60 million euros for the Deux-Sèvres department –, the basin committee has in fact begun to exercise a mediation role by taking up this explosive file. “Since January, we have met 150 people on site: local elected officials, farmers, representatives of the Deux-Sèvres Water Cooperative, Coop 79, a delegation from the Bassines non merci collective.relates Thierry Burlot, president of the basin committee, who led this mission with eight other representatives sitting in this body. On the spot, I saw anguish, distress, a bruised territory. We can’t help them! »
“Territorial governance pact”
The roadmap adopted on 4 July provides for this delegation to continue its “listening mission” until November, in order to “facilitate the resumption of dialogue”. The objective is to conclude a “territorial governance pact” between local authorities and funders. The basin committee delegation recommends achieving “a global contract for the common good” and to formalize a space for exchange on the quantitative management of the resource, on “aquatic environments, the fight against diffuse pollution, the protection of catchments”.
Future negotiations should be based on the principles set out in the motion. These can be summed up in a few words: water sharing and public management of the resource, transparency, agroecology and above all serious efforts to adapt to the consequences of climate change. This dimension was clearly absent from the water storage equipment program until now.
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