The defenders of the mega basins, these reserves of water drawn from the groundwater and intended for agricultural irrigation, follow the initial construction program. Work on a third “basin” began Monday in Deux-Sèvres in Priaires, two days after the arrival in Paris of a convoy of opponents of these water reservoirs intended for agricultural irrigation, who left ten days earlier from Sainte-Soline.
“We are starting this new project as planned in the schedule for the first phase of the project”, announced in a press release Thierry Boudaud, president of the Coop de l’eau 79, a group of farmers who are carrying out the project for these disputed reservations. Earth-moving machinery has arrived to begin the work which will last until the end of the year, according to the same source. The Priaires basin should come into service in 2024. With a capacity of 160,000 cubic meters, it is the smallest of the 16 planned in the department.
“Dialogue, so that Priaires does not become a new Sainte-Soline”
A first works in Mauzé-sur-le-Mignon and another is under construction in Sainte-Soline, where several demonstrations for two years have given rise to clashes between opponents and the police, the last, at the end of March, had was the most violent. “In our territories, the atmosphere is unbreathable. We demand the immediate suspension of work, an essential condition for the return of dialogue, so that Priaires does not become a new Sainte-Soline ”, reacted the ecologists Lisa Belluco, deputy for Vienne, and Benoît Biteau, MEP and farmer in Charente- Maritime.
Saturday in Paris, at the end of a convoy that left by bicycle and tractor on August 18 from Sainte-Soline, a thousand people marched to protest against these detentions. The day before, the opponents had unsuccessfully demanded a moratorium from the Loire Bretagne Water Agency in Orléans. The installation of grids at Priaires, prior to the start of the project, had poisoned the debate.
A tense trial
“We tried another way, that of appeasement, of a resumption of dialogue. But we cannot dialogue if the government continues the construction of new basins, “said Saturday during a press point the spokesperson for the movement Les Uprisings of the Earth, Benoît Feuillu, referring to new actions “to dismantle the construction sites “.
On September 8, nine representatives of environmental and trade union movements will be tried in Niort for having organized demonstrations banned by the authorities in Sainte-Soline. “A large rally of support will be organized. And we will not be far from Priaires, ”added the activist.
These reserves dug into the ground and called “megabasins” by opponents, aim to store water in the open air drawn from surface aquifers in winter, in order to irrigate crops in summer when rainfall becomes scarce.
Their supporters make it a harvest insurance essential to their survival and a tool for the transition to agroecology. Opponents denounce them, a “grabbing” of water by “agro-industry”.