With a wave of the hand, Rosette hugs the contours of her village. “Before, there were washhouses, fountains everywhere. Today everything is dry. On this square in the small town of Bouleternère, time almost seems to have stopped. Like every day, Rosette knits with three friends. But the topics of conversation have changed. Since April 14, this town in Bas-Conflent, a valley at the foot of the Pyrenees chain, has no longer had access to drinking water. Just like those of Corbère, Corbère-les-Cabanes and Saint-Michel-de-Llotes. That’s a little over 3,000 people “in trouble”, says Raymond.
Two days earlier, the SIAEP, the union in charge of water management in the four municipalities, announced the end of the withdrawals from the drinking water borehole, which was almost dry. Since then, the water that flows from the tap comes from a connection to an agricultural source. Unfit for consumption, pending the results of the analyzes of the ARS (regional health agency).
The water situation in the Pyrénées-Orientales department is tense. “It’s scary. We are very worried about the future. And the solution, we don’t have it, ”recognizes Rosette. For nearly a year, the department has been placed on heightened vigilance. In this border territory with Spain, it no longer rains, or almost. The department’s nine weather stations indicate extreme drought over the past six months. The level of water reservoirs and groundwater is worrying, at a time when all the indicators should be at their maximum. At the beginning of the week, the water even completely stopped flowing in the taps in Corbère.
“Water arrived in the village in 1956… What a step back! »
Michel was born seventy-five years ago in Bouleternère. “We had such good, pure water that I’ve never bought a bottle in my entire life. At the time, my mother made me bottles with water from here. It’s the first year that we’ve missed it.” At his side, Jacotte also opens the memory box. “The water arrived in the village in 1956. And today, it is no longer consumable. It’s a hell of a step back.” “We were warned for years, but, in general, we did not pay attention to it. We wasted it thinking that there would always be some, recognizes Alexis. I recently saw a video by Jean-Claude Van Damme, which goes back fifteen years, in which he said he loved water, but that in twenty, thirty years, there would be no more. At the time, people laughed at him”.
Twice a week, the municipalities distribute a six-pack of 1.5 liter bottles of water to each inhabitant. For the rest, you have to adapt. “We recover as much water as possible, for example that with which we clean fruits and vegetables, to use it in the toilets, as our parents did, explains Jeanne. At 82, I’m used to calculating everything and paying attention to everything, but you have to admit that it’s not easy. »
Nadine, a resident of Corbère-les-Cabanes, has tried something else. “I sing out of tune, so I try, but it doesn’t work,” she smiles. Before getting more serious. ” Water is life. We hope it will be an exceptional year. In the meantime, people are adapting. But it is complicated for the inhabitants of the villages. And it is even more so for those who live in farmhouses, are not connected to the network and whose boreholes are dry. And then there are the farmers. For them, what is happening now is a disaster”.
The misunderstandings of the inhabitants
The situation is alarming. Many questions. Almost all the inhabitants met wonder about the management of the Vinca dam, which is the largest water reserve in the department, and its destocking in the fall. Other questions flourish, such as the maintenance of pipes. “There was work on the main borehole, it broke three times in the same place, underlines Marylène. We do not have the skills to judge this work, but we still have the right to be surprised. In any case, we suffer from it”. Or even misunderstandings about the construction of new housing estates and villas with swimming pools, when there is already a lack of water for the populations present.
This Thursday, the prefect Rodrigue Furcy convened a drought committee to determine the new restrictive measures. A committee under tension while the Minister for Ecological Transition, Christophe Béchu, visited the department to see the consequences of the drought. Tensions around the use of water are strong, whether it is drinking water needs for the inhabitants, for nature, for tourism with a multiplied population in the summer or for the fight against fires. .
The Canadairs are called upon to restock at the Vinça dam to fight forest fires when they break out in places too far from the sea. devoured a thousand hectares, highlighted the drought of plants that have become particularly combustible, a taste of what could happen this summer. Finally, among the needs are those of the farmers, whose feeling of being sacrificed is increasingly acute.
“The irrigation canal is open for twenty-four hours every twelve days, but it’s not enough,” notes Philippe Thorent, head of a small farm in Bouleternère. We will try to round the back. But we already know that we are going to lose a large part of our production. The water could more or less supply the needs of the trees up to now. But in about ten days, the fruits will grow and it will take a lot more if we don’t want to lose the harvest. The needs will grow. And what we are allowed is very insufficient”.
In an attempt to preserve the resource, the prefecture has drastically lowered the level of withdrawals in the Têt, intended for farmers. On April 24, at the call of the FDSEA, they expressed their dissatisfaction. It is a whole pillar of the economy of the Pyrénées-Orientales which is on borrowed time. In 2015, the sector employed 4,900 people for a turnover of 364 million euros, the second largest economic player in the Pyrénées-Orientales, behind tourism. President of the department, Hermeline Malherbe (PS) wrote to Emmanuel Macron in order to “ask the State to set up a solidarity fund (…) to guarantee immediate financial support to farmers who will see their crops destroyed, or even their production tool disappear”.
The prefect warned him: “There will not be enough water for all uses (…) The quantities available are very low”. For the moment, four villages no longer have drinking water. How many will there be in a few months, even in a few weeks? “We test before the others what is likely to become widespread in the near future”, warns Marylène.