2023-06-06 22:10:00
DISPATCH — In Brittany, are the checks carried out by the Regional Health Agency (ARS) on the quality of bathing water distorted? It is on this question that the administrative court of Rennes looked into this Tuesday, June 6, following the referral of the association “Eau et Rivières”, which is convinced of it.
For the association, it is neither more nor less than a “health scandal finally revealed in broad daylight”. While on its site, the ARS indicates only nine bathing places out of 581 as being of “insufficient” quality, “Eau et Rivières” considers that there would in fact be more than fifty. And for good reason ! Officials of the association believe that the State “blames the rain” to avoid “looking for the real sources of pollution”, but also that quality controls are voluntarily carried out at more convenient times. “If you break the thermometer, you don’t risk knowing the health of the patient”, is offended Arnaud Clugéry, director and spokesperson for “Eau et Rivières” in Brittany.
Concretely, the ARS carries out checks regularly, in particular after “punctual” episodes of pollution. This includes, for example, a burst pipe, or an overflow from a sewage treatment plant, but also… rain. A week after the rainy episodes, sometimes on closed beaches, the ARS systematically carries out its quality controls. For the association, it is an overload of data that distorts the real results, for which “randomness should prevail”. “Too often the rain is accused of being the cause of beach closures, when the problem is elsewhere,” laments Arnaud Clugery.
On Twitter, the association ironically played a game of seven differences, supposed to highlight the real causes of water pollution:
GAME ♠️ | Here are the causes of bathing water pollution. Will you find the differences between the version of the @Prefet29 and specialists in@Ifremer_fr ?
⚓️ Answer to win our magazine! pic.twitter.com/nGld8rrbq2— Water and Rivers of Brittany (@Eauetrivieres) December 19, 2022
“Defective sanitation services” and devastating “intensive farming”, this is what should be blamed according to “Eau et Rivières”. As reported by Telegram, the association explains that “water runoff washes the soil and systematically generates a spill of nitrates, pesticides and faecal matter on the coasts”. And to emphasize that “the map of pollution of bathing waters is furiously similar to that of pollution by nitrates and green algae”.
For the moment, if the court has nuanced the words of the association, it went in its direction by asking the ARS to redo the calculations. He will make his final decision between June 15 and 30.
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