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LE FIGARO - You announced a plan called “Blue Gold 2023” during the agricultural show. Comparing water to gold, does this mean that it is becoming so rare, precious and expensive today?
Renaud MUSELIER -
Indeed, the words have a meaning.
But it is necessary to have a strong display in this context.
But you should not be afraid of drought, because here, we have always suffered from it.
We armed ourselves and we always found solutions, whether it was the Romans with the aqueducts to the Serre-Ponçon dam, via Napoleon III.
In this “Blue Gold” plan, there will be several axes.
But I insist on the collective sobriety which is essential, as for the energy crisis.
For water, this awareness is also progressing, and working.
We must avoid wars of use, we must temper each other.
We have to give prospects and that is why we are investing 800 million euros.
At the same time, we are going to initiate departmental assizes of the
water which will conclude with regional statements on June 8.
By revealing all this at the agricultural show, we were in tune with the times and even rather ahead in my opinion.
There are incredible climatic effects with dramatic excesses of water, like during storm Alex (September 2020, editor's note), and glaring shortages of water, like at the moment.
You have to think about how you find that balance.
Why are you betting on the reuse of treated wastewater (Reut)?
It is one of the links in the plan and for us it is perhaps the easiest to organise.
We are almost ready because we have the hills in the region, so we have to work on them.
We also have the Société du Canal de Provence (SCP) which is a structured and efficient tool with its branches.
We have implemented in some municipalities wastewater treatment, and once the water is treated, it goes to the evacuations when it should simply be put back into the non-drinking water pipes!
We will launch a general diagnosis with the State in 2023 and we will organize the connections in 2024.
Read alsoWinter drought: is your department at risk of running out of water this summer?
The reuse of this "grey water" can cause concern. Farmers wonder about its quality in order to keep their labels and consumers for their health. How do you reassure them?
I reassure them by saying that it already exists.
In Spain, 25% of the water comes from this technique and in Israel, it is almost 80%.
I'm a doctor, so there's no question of intoxicating people!
We will set levels of chemical treatment with experts and we will have all of this validated by the University of Aix-Marseille.
We will align ourselves with Spanish and Israeli standards to make our diagnosis.
The French, he has no water and we are going to provide him with it.
That of its flush, once retired, I think it can be used very well to clean a car or water a lawn, even that of the Vélodrome stadium in Marseille or the Allianz Riviera in Nice!
We will do tests and give explanations.
But I believe in evolution and science.
I don't think Israelis or Spaniards want to kill themselves when they drink reprocessed water.
I don't invent anything, I use the experience of others.
Precisely, are the French regulations too strict for the Reut?
I assume that the Israelis are in a situation of a small country surviving in a large desert and they manage to grow everything, everywhere.
We eat their oranges or their grapefruits which are certainly sprinkled with these treated waters, without being intoxicated.
French legislation may change.
I will rely on scientific advice to make proposals and I will do so with Marc Fesneau, the Minister of Agriculture.
So the Israeli model is a model within the framework of your regional plan?
When we know a bit about the history of this part of the world, we see that they were the first to tackle the problem in its entirety.
They built a new country on dry pebbles!
They have found and provide solutions to produce fruits and vegetables that they sell all over the world.
It can still appeal!
They are, for example, the ones who invented the drip in the 1960s. To survive, to develop their country, they imagined things.
Lately, they are using ultraviolet filtering to make the water even purer.
Why not !
You have to use their model and their experience, and so I'm going to see it on site, in May.
As part of this plan, are you in favor of the desalination technique, even if expensive and very energy-intensive?
If there is no more water, you are dead.
The problem must be considered because the difficulty is at our doorstep.
So we have to think of all the solutions.
When I see the Emirates - which are able to install golf courses in the middle of the desert!
- I tell myself that they know how to find water!
They have given themselves substantial resources for desalination and that impresses me.
I do not measure the environmental consequence of such a factory.
On the other hand, I fully appreciate its effectiveness in providing drinking water for thousands, even millions of people.
So there is a real answer.
It needs to be refined, I am not closed to anything.
I assemble and I add.
If there is no more water, you are dead.
The problem must be considered because the difficulty is at our doorstep.
So we have to think of all the solutions.
Have you also planned investments to better capture rainwater?
For my part, I am very much in favor of it.
We can clearly see that there are environmentalists saying that we don't need hill reservoirs.
We will put what there is to put in place with the local elected officials who wish it.
Take the example of the mountains.
If we don't want snow cannons, I wouldn't need to make detentions.
But then I choose to lose the white gold for the ski resorts as economic income, which is the compensation in the valley.
Everyone is responsible for their choice.
I am in a pragmatic logic, I think that where there is water, it should be kept and reused, especially when it falls from the sky.
There is an absolute necessity to provide water.
It is necessary to arrive in the most peaceful way possible to bring the maximum of answers.
Already a bad surprise for the Alpes-Maritimes
Renaud Muselier learned, by surprise, during his visit to the agricultural show on Tuesday and Wednesday, the situation of a unique water network in the Alpes-Maritimes.
"We have a very specific problem in this department, it leaves a little speechless!"
, he is still surprised with Le
Figaro
.
There would only be a single pipe for drinking water.
"I understand better why water prices are more than doubling between the Var and the Alpes-Maritimes for farmers
," adds the president of the Paca region.
This already poses a major complexity in the desire to reuse treated wastewater:
“I don't have the answer, I don't know
,” admits Renaud Muselier.
We knew we were going to encounter difficulties.
Hence the importance of an accurate diagnosis, because we are already seeing incredible things.”
How to revise the envelope of the plan?
"
In general, there are always small extensions"
, he smiles.
