“The senators are” climate-inactive “,” climate-resigned “” … The words of Barbara Pompili, Minister of Ecological Transition, on the Public Senate channel on July 5, summarize the climate of tensions between the government and the upper house of Parliament, in the hands of the right-wing opposition, on climate issues. This while opens this Monday, at 3 p.m.,
the Joint Joint Commission (CMP) on the Climate and Resilience Bill, the last major environmental law of the five-year term.
The CMP, made up of seven deputies for as many senators, are launched when the two parliamentary chambers fail to agree on a bill. Will it be conclusive this time? Barbara Pompili’s entourage is skeptical and lists the setbacks introduced by the senators and which the government will want to come back to on Monday. Low emission zones, nitrogen fertilizers, vegetarian meals in canteens… And mills, here we are.
The issue of ecological continuity of watercourses
Finally, not really the mills, immediately insists André Berne, of the “Water and aquatic environments” network of France Nature Environment (FNE). But
their thresholds, these small dams that cross the rivers to raise the water level and help and generate energy. To understand the controversy, Hamid Oumoussa, director general of the
National Fishing Federation in France (FNPF), back to the
2006 law on water and aquatic environments. “It takes up, by specifying it, an obligation of the 19th century, which asks the owners of works barring the natural ecological continuity of waterways to restore it precisely. »A principle also fixed by a
European directive of 2000, in order to ensure the free movement of fish to the areas where they reproduce, feed, hide …
France has tens of thousands of works inherited from its history which break this ecological continuity. “Of any kind (dams, reservoirs, locks, thresholds), some in operation, most anachronistic and unused,” explains Hamid Oumoussa.
Incentives for the destruction of thresholds?
Two main options are then available to their owners or to the prefects when they cannot be found. Either equip these structures with fish passage and / or specific turbines, to prevent them from injuring themselves when crossing the dams. Or, quite simply, erase these works. “These options give entitlement to aid calculated according to the effectiveness of the solution chosen, up to 100% subsidy,” explains André Berne. However, the first has limited effectiveness and is expensive, when the reverse is true for the second. “
Since 2010, the State has encouraged the erasure of mill sills. How ? “This is one of the points on which we would like to have a precise detail, indicates Guillaume Chevrollier, Senator Les Républicains, author of an information report on the subject. Windmill defense associations number between 3,000 and 5,000. The report of the General Commission for Sustainable Development speaks of 1,000. “
The stop of deputies and senators
Anyway, parliamentarians have chosen to put a stop to this practice. First the deputies. Against Barbara Pompili’s advice, they adopted an amendment which excludes the erasure of the mill retention thresholds from possible ecological restoration tracks for watercourses. First anger of the government.
The bill then arrived on the Senate table. First in a special committee, which took over the drafting of the article. The new version specifies that the obligation of ecological continuity cannot “be used as a reason to justify the destruction of a water mill or of its elements making it possible to exploit the force of the current, except in the case of ‘a wish of the owner or if the latter cannot be identified’ “A good compromise,” says André Berne. The new text is also better suited to the government. “Barbara Pompili was committed to ensuring that the balance found in committee be maintained in a joint committee,” said people around her.
Before the CMP, the Climate and Resilience bill still had to pass in plenary session in the Senate. And mid-June, the senators returned to the first version of the article and voted it compliant. “In this case, it is definitely no longer possible to touch it”, fulminates at the Ministry of Ecological Transition, where this betrayal goes badly.
Migratory fish, the first to be impacted?
André Berne sees especially the blockages on the ground that will result from this article. “Even the owners of books who wanted to erase their thresholds will no longer be able to do so, it’s shocking,” he says, deploring the many confusions around this issue. “At no time is the idea to touch the mills, and the erasures are not done without the owner’s agreement,” he recalls. The sills are not all concerned either, but only those barring rivers for which the restoration of ecological continuity has been considered a stake. This concerns 11% of our rivers. “
The issue is not trivial for environmental associations and fishermen. “In France, less than 50% of watercourses are today in good ecological condition,” begins Hamid Oumoussa, before pointing out the two main culprits: chemical pollution and this discontinuity of watercourses. “These structures which block our rivers – there is on average one every 5 km – force the fish to live in spaces too small for certain species”, continues the president of the FNPF. In particular migratory fish (eels, salmon, trout, etc.), which shuttle between sea water and fresh water, sometimes going far upstream of our rivers. “The situation of these migrating fish remains critical even if, in some places, their vertiginous fall has been slowed down”.
Take a break to take a step back?
Windmill defense associations do not say they are insensitive to the challenges of preserving biodiversity, but question the effectiveness of erasing thresholds to restore it. They put forward perverse effects, such as “the drying up of rivers”, definitively depriving themselves of a potential for the production of renewable energies. “This is the meaning of the return of senators to the initial drafting of the Assembly,” explains Guillaume Chevrollier. That of taking a break in erasing the thresholds in order to be able to take a step back, scientifically assess the contribution of this solution and those of others. “
André Berne invites you to go for a walk in Normandy, a region which had taken the lead in removing dams. This sometimes leads to the noticeable returns of migrating fish to the waterways, even if the destruction of the sills is not the only explanation. In the Orne, we see Atlantic salmon, which had not been seen since … 1920, related West France in 2017.