These first works on the Vistre were officially inaugurated by the elected officials and the prefect of Gard. They will be followed by others over 20 km by 2030.
Started in October 2021, after preventive archeology excavations downstream of the A54 motorway (discovery of Mesolithic remains), with the installation and preparation of the site, and completed in early 2023 with the revegetation of the major bed, the revitalization du Vistre au moulin Villard (from the road to Arles to the road to Saint-Gilles) was officially inaugurated on Wednesday 12 April.
Operation on 2.3 km of the Vistre
In the presence of the prefect of Gard Marie-Françoise Lecaillon, the deputy for the constituency Yoann Gillet, the president of Nîmes Métropole Franck Proust, the regional director of the Water Agency Karine Bonacina, the mayor of Caissargues Olivier Fabregoul, and many elected officials from the Vistre basin, Thierry Agnel and Florence Dhuisme, the president and vice-president of the EPTB (Public Territorial Basin Establishment) Vistre Vistrenque, presented to the audience all the work and its purpose .
This operation, which took place over 2.3 km of the Vistre in the municipalities of Nîmes and Caissargues, required the acquisition of 20 hectares of land.
The regrets of the elected officials of Petite Camargue
During the inauguration, the elected officials of the community of communes of Petite Camargue, present on the spot, regretted that the revitalization of the Vistre had been started upstream and not downstream. “The development of the meanders and the widening of the river are a good thing to slow down its flow, but we regret that this was not done first downstream, at the place where the Vistre is most important in volume of water, because with the increase in the cadereaux which flow into it, its flow has increased sharply. Before it took two days for the water to circulate from Nîmes to Cailar, and now it only takes six hours If we compare this to the evacuation of water from a house, it is a bit as if the diameter of the evacuation to the mains drainage was smaller than that of the shower”, underline- they.
Natural and socio-economic issues
“The route and shape of the new river bed reflect the land requirements and the uses identified on the territory, taking into account local natural and socio-economic issues, agriculture, housing, proximity to the underground water table of the Vistrenque, the drinking water resource for the population, the archaeological richness of the places, the communication routes, the electrical and irrigation networks, and the invasive species to be removed or, on the contrary, heritage species to be protected”, underlined Thierry Agnel and Florence Dhuisme.
Overall cost of €3,443,009 including tax
“Its funding is split in two because part of the work is dedicated to carrying out compensatory measures for two developers, OC’via, for €914,000 for the restoration of linear banks and wetlands due to the construction of the rail line around Nîmes on tributaries of the Vistre, and Nîmes Métropole for €451,597 to compensate for the backfilling of the major bed of the river caused by the extension of the trambus line to Caissargues”, explained Florence Dhuisme .
20 additional km by 2030
The cost of the works excluding compensatory measures is €2,077,412, 74% financed by the Rhône Méditerranée Corse water agency, for €1,542,291, and 26% by the EPTB Vistre Vistrenque, for €535,121 .
By 2030, 20 additional kilometers should be revitalized on the Vistre, from Caissargues to the Bastide, and on three of its tributaries, the Vistre de la Fontaine, the Buffalon and the Rhôny.
