Drought: when a river in the Loiret, returned to the wild, gradually empties

Due to the lack of rain and high temperatures, "the levels of the rivers are continuing to dry up" in the Loiret, according to the latest "Drought news" bulletin from the Regional Department for the Environment, Planning and housing (Dreal) from July 27th.

If some droughts have already been observed, others are to be feared, in particular that of Dhuy in Sandillon, a small town in the south of the Loire.

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This river, fed by the sources of Sologne and the Loire Valley, flows from Sully-sur-Loire for nearly 35 km and joins the Loiret, at Olivet.

It displays a very low flow, worrying according to Sandrine Reverchon, deputy director at the Departmental Directorate of Territories who affirms that "we are in a hydrological situation in crisis".

But the Sandillonnais dispute the causes of the drying up of the Dhuy.

“Le Dhuy, I bathed there, I went canoeing there.

Many fish were caught there: carp, eels, pike, roach…”

Vincent Bouin, 37-year-old farmer

Indeed, many people remember, not without nostalgia, the time when this river flowed over a width of 5 m and a depth of 1.5 m, almost all year round.

“I have always lived in Sandillon and I took over the farm from my grandparents, explains Vincent Bouin, a 37-year-old farmer.

Le Dhuy, I bathed there, I went canoeing there.

Many fish were caught there: carp, eels, pike, roach... but since the dismantling of the dams, everything has burst!

It's just a pile of sediment and a trickle of water.

He thus accuses "the ecologists" of having, for fifteen years, dismantled the dams with valves and of not maintaining the vegetation which today "obstructs the flow".

Letting nature take over takes time

As a reminder, the river had been artificialized in the 1970s, during the great land consolidation, and valve dams had been installed, making it possible to retain rainwater in winter and release it in summer.

But these barriers have been gradually removed, the last in 2017. Jules Cugnart, deputy head of the French Office for Biodiversity (OFB), explains "that it is a desire to allow during of water to resume its natural management after the installation of anthropological obstacles which have compromised the natural environments".

Thus the meanders removed in favor of the valves have been recreated to restore sediment transit and fish development.

Valentin Caron, a 32-year-old farmer from Sandillon who has been there for 6 years, accuses “human intervention which has destroyed biodiversity and caused the river to dry up.

A waste of public money for useless works!

".

Owners prevented from maintaining their plot

Jules Cugnart delays: “The objective of the water law is to allow nature to regain its rights, but that takes a long time.

Some actions are very profitable, with immediate reactions from the species and the environment, and others are much more diffuse.

We went very quickly in modifying our environment but it takes a very long time to return to a wilder state.

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And to remember that it is up to the owners of plots to regularly maintain the waterways in accordance with the environmental code in order to maintain them in their balanced profile.

A point contested by the residents of Sandillon who say they are not free to be able to maintain the Dhuy when it is invaded by vegetation, accusing a repressive intervention of the services of the State.

Faced with these stubborn differences of point of view, the environmental police claim to rely on awareness and education more than on repression for the maintenance of waterways and the management of the resource.