In a relentless scenario of marine erosion, the strong waves of last Monday have further abraded the weakened dunes of the beaches of Vias-Ouest (Hérault).
Local residents are now relying on the S-Able device devised by engineer Dominique Michon to save their plots of land plagued by the constant nibbling of the swell.
This coastal area has become touristy.
About fifteen campsites and 2,500 cabanized and legalized plots are located there.
The national association of elected officials from the coast (ANEL) has given the green light to experimenting with nets to trap the sand.
Objective: protect 900 m over the 3.5 km of the overexposed coastline.
"Our system works perfectly"
“The net system we have developed traps the sand by creating turbulence.
Behind the device, the sand accumulates instead of returning to the open sea, a bit like the dead leaves which accumulate behind a cypress hedge.
Our system works perfectly in Saint-Brévin-les-Pins (Loire-Atlantique) and on the Opal Coast, ”explains Dominique Michon, who offers three successive nets between 100 and 250 m, parallel to the coastline.
Ultimately these sandbanks are intended to slow down the swell before the beach impact.
This last-chance operation comes after the absolute fiasco of a costly first installment (7.9 million euros excluding taxes) carried out by the territorial and sea services and by the Hérault-Méditerranée agglomeration which consisted in orchestrating the retreat of the coastal campsites over 60 m.
The project owners, on the faith of the experts, had the riprap that protected the plots removed, protections put in place and paid for at the time by the residents themselves.
To replace them with natural vegetated dunes… that the first storms literally devoured.
“Without the rip-rap, our establishments will eventually disappear.
And the state services forbid us to carry out the maintenance of these protections ”, warns Marie-France Durancel, the owner of Camping Californie Plage who pleads for the pilot project of the nets.
Authorities want everyone back 180 m
“The authorities' plan includes the 180 m territorial setback for everyone.
But this is an absurd projection because behind the coast, the plots are mostly of lower altitude and the State will swallow up considerable sums paid by taxpayers ”, denounces Richard Pascal, the owner of the 3-star campsite Le Roucan Plage. perched at 3.80 m above sea level, solidly protected by riprap that he certainly does not intend to remove.
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Richard Pascal shows us around the famous first “rock removal” section presented in 2015 as a heavily subsidized “protection and enhancement” pilot operation.
Result: gutted dunes, a wooden coastal promenade suspended in the void and campsites now threatened on stormy days.
Actor of the first phase of the works, the mayor of Vias, Jordan Dartier, brings the last chance nets project to the ANEL for lack of being able to obtain hard protections (breakwaters) off this tourist area which does not exist. is not considered urbanized.
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Asked several times, the State services did not wish to answer our questions.
