Closed to navigation since the heavy rains and the flood that occurred from February 3 to 5, the Garonne side canal reopened to navigation yesterday. While waiting for the return of rental companies and boaters.
The tourist season is looming on the horizon with its uncertainties related to the health situation, but one of its main tools in the region is ready to serve. The lateral canal to the Garonne, connecting the Canal du Midi from Toulouse to the Gironde to make it the Canal des Deux Mers, is once again open to navigation. Four weeks of closure were necessary for emergency work following the torrential rains that fell in particular in Lot-et-Garonne in early February.
€ 300,000 for consolidation work
At the beginning of February – from the 3rd to the 5th – the Garonne experienced a significant flood and material damage to the infrastructure was significant. The Garonne canal – another of its names with the Lateral – was hit hard between locks n ° 53, Embouchure, and n ° 51, Mazerac, in the town of Castets and Castillon in Gironde.
“A race against time has begun to secure the area around the canal,” the Voies navigables de France explained in a letter. VNF agents carried out an inventory of the damage and began work on February 6 “.
As a matter of urgency, it was necessary to remove torn trees (ice jams) and waste carried by the water, clean the channel and the canal aqueducts filled with silt by the muddy waters of the Garonne and restore hydraulic equipment to allow the operation of the locks.
For the tourist season
Further upstream, in Lot-et-Garonne, in Marcellus, a landslide caused the fall of 500 m3 of earth and materials in the canal. The work consisted of clearing the earth, installing a protective barrier and rebuilding the towpath. The budget for these interventions is around € 300,000, according to the Voies Navigables de France, other work will continue, with the complete restoration of the canal amounting to € 500,000.
The freight freight being ultra-small, it is in view of the tourist season that this return to service is important, for boat rental companies as well as for pleasure boaters.
Each year, hundreds of boats use it, in 2019 there were 1,175 passages in Toulouse, 791 in Montech and 1,207 in Moissac, and 225 on arrival, in Castets.
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