A pioneering project to treat wastewater for domestic purposes



The Vendée at the forefront. The department faced with strong tensions over its water resource, announced on Friday the launch of a project, unprecedented in Europe, for the use of treated wastewater for domestic purposes, which will begin with long months of experimentation. . The
Vendée Water union and
Veolia signed a contract for this program called “Jourdain”, including the construction in 2022 of a refining unit which will experiment throughout 2023 the production of “very high quality” water from wastewater.

From 2024, this water will be discharged into the natural environment, then reprocessed to supply the Vendée territories with drinking water. 90% of the Vendée now depends on surface water, which is very sensitive to climate change, and which the territory, under demographic and tourist pressure, is trying to diversify: waste hunting, work on pipelines, interconnections… In the impossibility to multiply the reservoirs, since 2011 it has carried the “REUT” project, the use of treated wastewater.

“A visionary but also responsible project”

For Jacky Dallet, president of Vendée Water, “You have to be daring”. “It is about development and life on our territory”, he underlines, adding that “many communities are observing the progress of this project, with the hope that tomorrow the Vendée will provide an answer to their challenges of potable water “. “Water is too precious to be used only once”, pleads the CEO of
Veolia, Antoine Frérot, evoking “a first in France and in Europe”. “A visionary but also responsible project: for twelve months, it will run dry, making it possible to ensure treatment performance”.

The water from the Sables d’Olonne wastewater treatment plant goes through two filtration stages, then two disinfection stages. It is then transported over 25 km to the Jaunay dam, discharged into a vegetated area where it mixes with the river and passes to the reservoir and the drinking water production plant, serving the west of the Vendée (100,000 outbreaks, two to three times more in summer).

Cost of the project: 19.5 million euros over 10 years, according to Vendée Eau, which promises that the consumer’s bill will not increase. In France, 0.6% of wastewater is recycled, especially in agricultural irrigation, or even to water golf courses and green spaces. Globally, it is around 4%, especially for agricultural purposes (Israel, Spain…), more rarely domestic (Australia, Namibia, Singapore).



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