“When we see cars and trucks being loaded into the current, we inevitably remember it, blows Eddie Vandenabeele.
It was apocalyptic.
"It was almost seven years ago, September 22, 2014." It was fine that day ", continues this farmer, not yet mayor at the time.
Following a thunderstorm and rains of rare intensity, a veritable torrent of mud swept over the village of Valdampierre (Oise), sweeping everything in its path.
“It was unheard of, even bicentennial walls had blown up. In all, eight families had to be relocated. "We had neither electricity nor drinking water, the Red Cross came for a week… It took us a year to recover," added the elected official.
Anxious not to relive such an event, he quickly looked into the issue of runoff and mud flows in his town of 900 inhabitants.
Planting of hedges, installation of fascine - these bundles of branches which make it possible to slow down the passage of water without creating flood zones, construction of valleys, these wide and deep ditches which function as an infiltration basin ... planned to stop these climatic phenomena.
“Something had to be done, because it will happen again one day or another, believes the chosen one.
Maybe tomorrow, maybe in fifty years, I don't know, but someday.
"
About fifteen municipalities and inter-municipal authorities supported
To reflect on these changes, Eddie Vandenabeele turned to the Oise Chamber of Agriculture.
“There, it's not going to be too expensive and that was our goal.
In 2014, I had already requested a first study, but it proposed an investment of one and a half million euros for work.
It was not possible for a municipality like us, we do not have the budget, ”says the mayor.
On the territory of the village and that of its neighbor, Les Hauts-Talicans, a topographic study has been carried out to assess the soils and work should begin soon.
A skill in "fighting against runoff" was recently acquired by the organization.
“It all started with the storms that took place in 2018,” reveals Fabrice Couvreur, of the Chamber of Agriculture.
Whether Venette, Clairoix, Attichy, Sainte-Geneviève, Allonne, Le Meux, Thourotte or even Berneuil-sur-Aisne, many villages in the Oise had been affected by bad weather.
"Consequently, there is a demand which has emerged from these communities", continues the person in charge.
In all, around fifteen municipalities and intermunicipal bodies are now supported by the Chamber.
A change in practices for farmers
And this should not decrease, quite the contrary, he assures. Because global warming leads, in its wake, to the intensification of climatic phenomena, with increasingly violent thunderstorms, heat waves and longer periods of drought. An elected representative thus evokes a future "not very optimistic" for the small communes located in a basin. "We, as mayor, we always have the same fear when we see storms coming," confirms Laurent Portebois, mayor (SE) of Clairoix.
And to continue: "Because we have to see in what state we are found after the mudslides ..." He considers having "lost a lot of time" to set up these arrangements. "We had to make farmers aware of the importance of having reasoned crops," he said. Because the surrounding fields would be accused of contributing to this phenomenon, so devastating for the villages. “Cultures have evolved,” continues Laurent Portebois. Now there are grass strips nearby to absorb the water. "
With the support of the Chamber of Agriculture of Oise, a whole work of consultation and mediation is carried out with farmers to change certain practices. “It may just be to seed across the slope rather than in the direction of the slope,” explains Fabrice Couvreur. Thus preventing water from surging in already dug furrows and from surging into the streets.
