A light white smoke rises above the pile of seashells. The smell is foul and no one dares approach, except the insatiable gulls who come there to refuel. For the past few days, tons of mussels have been piling up in the port of Vivier-sur-Mer and Cherrueix (Ille-et-Vilaine) without anyone knowing when it will stop. It is in these small towns with a view of Mont-Saint-Michel that most of the bay’s mussel farmers are established. While they used to discard their smallest mussels at the seaside for decades, fishermen are now banned from doing so. The fault of a court decision rendered by the administrative court of Rennes on September 21.
Seized by two associations, the court considered that the prefectural decree authorizing the rejection of these “under-sized moulds” was not in accordance with the law and repealed it. The problem is that in the height of the season, mussel fishermen don’t really have any other solution to get rid of the smaller shells that they don’t sell. After storing them in dumpsters, they decided to take action by dumping hundreds of kilos of small mussels on the port every day. “It’s clearly disgusting, it’s a real stench. But we are at an impasse. We are forbidden to throw them back into the bay, but how do we do it? asks Stéphane Hesry. A mussel farmer for twenty-five years, he deposited about 800 kg this Monday morning on a fragrant pile that already weighed 100 tons.
“It’s starting to ferment, it’s smoking”
This weekend, the mayor of the town went there to see the damage. And she keeps a rather bitter memory of it. “It’s worse than smelly, you can’t imagine. It’s starting to ferment, it’s smoking… It’s unbreathable! “says Carole Brain. The unlabeled mayor of Vivier-sur-Mer nevertheless defends the fishermen, whom she was able to meet. “The only alternative we offered them was to take their molds by truck to Normandy to be buried. Is this ecology? asks the chosen one.
The problem is not new in the bay of Mont-Saint-Michel. For years, two associations have been fighting to regulate the rejection of mussels under 4 centimeters deemed too small to be sold under the PDO. Because the practice is not without problems. Each year, 12,000 tonnes of mussels come out of the bay to be served with cream, marinière or curry. The problem is that 10 to 15% of the shells torn off by the articulated arms are too small. Once washed, they are almost immediately dumped in certain authorized sites such as Larronnière, in Cherrueix. “It’s very supervised and so much the better, because before, there weren’t always good practices”, recognizes Stéphane Hesry.
Mussel growers need time
The president of mussel union 35 pleads for a “greater diversity” of authorized sites in order to better distribute undersized mussels. Insufficient for the Association Pays d’Émeraude mer environnement (Apeme) and the Society for the Protection of Landscapes and Aesthetics of France (SPPEF) who want to defend this Natura 2000 area and demand that discharges be stopped. Their fight against producers comes up against a major problem: the virtual absence of acceptable alternative solutions. “We are in the middle of the season! How are we going to do this ? We are working to find solutions but we need time,” defends Stéphane Hesry. The weather is not going to help them. Because this year, the lack of rain in spring slowed the growth of mussels, 30% of which do not comply with AOP standards. Clinging to their wooden stake, many of them are too small to meet the strict specifications. Should it be changed? “AOP is not the problem. We have only taken up the standards of what has been done for forty years, ”defends the mussel farmer.
Faced with the urgency of the situation, the prefecture of Ille-et-Vilaine has indicated that the shells should be collected. It is the community of municipalities of the country of Dol and the bay of Mont Saint-Michel which will be responsible for evacuating the pile of 100 tonnes of mussels and cleaning up the old smelly juice. The state promises to help companies that are in difficulty in the short term to finance the process. And in the long term? The producers hope that the development projects carried out by the Mussela, Mytilimer and Cultimer companies will make it possible to market the flesh and shells of these small mussels.