Opponents of “mega-basins”, these water reserves drawn from groundwater for agricultural use, hope to bring together “several tens of thousands of people” during a new demonstration announced this Thursday for March 25, in location yet to be determined.
“We are announcing the biggest historic rally in Poitou-Charentes, the biggest rally for the defense of water as a common good,” said Julien Le Guet, spokesperson for the collective of opponents. “Basins no thank you”on the sidelines of a press briefing.
16 basins planned in Deux-Sèvres
At the end of October, several thousand people (4,000 according to the authorities, 7,000 according to the organizers) gathered in Sainte-Soline (Deux-Sèvres) to protest against the construction of a water reservoir, the second of a project which has 16 in the department.
Some opponents had managed to briefly force the gates of the site, before being repelled by some of the 1,500 gendarmes mobilized to prohibit access to the site. Demonstrators and police had deplored dozens of injuries, a handful of them having been hospitalized.
Following this mobilization, the collective of opponents had given the government fifteen days to decree a “moratorium on all water storage projects” and put an end to the Sainte-Soline site. But it resumed on November 8, while a similar project was validated in neighboring Vienna.
The Sainte-Soline “basin” is one of the 16 reserves of several hundred thousand m3 that are to be created in the Deux-Sèvres. Developed by a group of 400 farmers with the support of the State, the project aims to make water available for irrigation during the summer, thanks to the pumping of surface water tables in winter. A first reservoir was put into service in Mauzé-sur-Mignon, where a major demonstration had already taken place last spring.