“I had never seen it so empty in winter”. On this holiday Tuesday, Agathe watches over her little scouts while pacing the too wide “lunar”-like banks of the lake of Saint-Ferréol, near Revel (Haute-Garonne). She is more worried than surprised by the unusually low level. ” It hurts my heart. All the lakes are dry on my side, says Castraise It must be said that it hasn’t rained all winter”. And again, Agathe does not arrive in “Saint-Fé” at the worst time. At the end of autumn, the water table was so reduced that the famous “pyramid”, an intriguing little submerged building which generally only appears every ten years during emptying, had reappeared.
“The Saint-Ferréol dam should be 80% full at this time of year, it is only about 60% full”, notes Christophe Beltran, the head of the Midi territorial service of Waterways of France (VNF), the manager of the Canal du Midi, which uses the lake as the official reservoir of the famous waterway. The Lampy, another dam located higher up in the Montagne Noire, is not doing much better and the Ganguise, on the road to the Aude, is downright at half its usual capacity. “Overall, our reservoirs are 55% full compared to 85% on the same date in 2022”, specifies the technician.
No navigation before March 15
And this early lack of water also explains the landscape in Toulouse, about sixty kilometers away: in front of the Matabiau station, the Canal du Midi, which should have been “refilled with water” after emptying for cleaning of the reach [tronçon] Bayard looks more like a pond than a heritage jewel. And this low tide in the heart of the Pink City will last longer than expected.
Because VNF has just taken the decision, unprecedented in the memory of a lock keeper, at least for a reason other than purely technical, to delay the opening of the canal to navigation after its usual period of winter “unemployment”. It should have taken place on February 25, from Toulouse to Béziers. Barges will have to wait until March 15. It is currently only possible to sail on 30% of the green waters of the Canal and the 23 reaches drained during the winter will only fill up slowly and naturally, as long as the weather finally turns out to be mild, so rainy. . No question of starting so early to dig into such low reservoirs
Stay “grouped” when going through the locks
“We have this decision in order to preserve our reserves as much as possible, assures Christophe Beltran. Our objective is to have a sufficient water level in the reaches for as long as possible but also to satisfy the other uses of the canal”. Because the latter is not there only for the pleasure and tranquility of joggers. Half of its water is also used for agricultural irrigation and it even comes to certain sectors to secure the supply of drinking water. Suffice to say that VNF is only on the verge of a real “puzzle”.
To anticipate the difficulties that are sure to arise in this already historic year of drought, the manager has already decided to apply from March 15 a measure already applied last year in the torpor of July. The boats will have to pass the locks in a cluster. Because at each passage, each lock keeper emptying represents 800 m3 of water. And there are no more small savings for the Canal du Midi.