A decision that does not flow from source. For several months, local residents have been mobilizing against the exploitation of an underground water table by Alma, one of the leaders in the bottled water market in France, which markets Cristaline, among other things. At a time when many inhabitants are deprived of drinking water at the tap and that three quarters of the French groundwater tables are at their lowest, the controversy is swelling.
A showdown has begun between residents of Montagnac in Hérault, and the leader in the bottled water market Alma, which owns Saint-Yorre, Vichy, Cristaline and Thonon, among others. The reason ? The grabbing by the company of land to install a new bottling plant.
Sold by the town hall for 30,000 euros, these plots are a godsend for the Alma company. And this for two reasons: the first is that at a depth of nearly 1,500 meters lies an underground water table, officially classified as a “strategic groundwater body for the supply of drinking water”; and the second is that a borehole already exists in the field. The company could therefore eventually exploit it if it obtained the right to do so.
The source of discord in a thirsty land
A ludicrous situation for the surrounding population who are already struggling to get water from the tap and who are themselves forced to buy bottled water. “In our valley, we have no water from the town, everyone here is dependent either on a borehole or a well”, explains Christophe Savary de Beauregard to Novethic. This winegrower mainly depends on a well for his water supply, but he says he has to buy bottled mineral water every week for his personal consumption, and that of his clients since he also has two gîtes.
For several months, Christophe Savary has been fighting with his association “Veille Eau Grain” and other local residents to prevent this project from seeing the light of day. “This water reserve is colossal and we believe that the municipality must keep it in the event of a hard blow”, he insists. This source could, according to his estimates, supply a town of 20,000 inhabitants. However, water is a rare commodity in the region. According to the VigiEau government site, the town of Montagnac is located in a so-called “crisis” area, namely the highest level of alert set up. At this stage, only priority uses are authorized, while water withdrawals for agriculture, or domestic and public uses are strictly prohibited.
Key jobs
Questioned by Novethic, Compagnie Générale d’Eaux de Source (CGES), a subsidiary of Alma, assures that “the municipality of Montagnac has proposed the resumption of drilling for possible exploitation, as well as the plots on which it is located” . For its part, the town hall remained silent to our requests. Alma has promised to set up a bottling plant there with twenty jobs at the start and sixty in the long term. A very insufficient argument for Christophe Savary. “Such positions already exist not far from here, and they are not filled. So why create new ones?” he asks.
The other argument put forward by the municipality of Montagnac to justify this sale is the cost of restoring the borehole, estimated at 400,000 euros. For the time being, the company has only signed an agreement to sell and is therefore not yet the owner of the borehole. This sale remains conditional “on the prior decommissioning, by the Ministry of Ecological Transition and Territorial Cohesion, of the deposit currently subject to the mining code”, but also on the conclusions of the environmental impact study which has just been launched. last July and which should last eighteen months, thus postponing any project to January 2025.
The bottled water sector weakened by climate change
The creation of this new source remains an opportunity for the Alma group, leader in the French bottled water market with 28.4% market share, on a par with Nestlé Waters and far ahead of Danone (19.3%). . However, the climate crisis and successive droughts are increasingly weakening this economy, which is nevertheless in full expansion. A certain number of companies are today accused by the local populations of exhausting the water tables, as in Vittel in the Vosges or in Volvic in Auvergne.
“This economy aggravates the problem because it disrupts the natural water cycle”, explains to Novethic the hydrologist engineer Charlène Descollonges, and author of “L’eau, Fake or Not” published by Tana. This water drawn to be bottled and exported will never return to its original environment. “This represents considerable volumes of water thus diverted”. In 2021, France produced 11.3 billion liters of water, of which 1.835 billion were exported to China or Argentina.
“We should rather focus today on putting water back into the groundwater. However, we continue to grant operating rights to companies to dry them out even more”, regrets Charlène Descollonges. For its part, the sector denies altering this ecosystem. “We work with very deep aquifers, which are not impacted by climatic hazards”, explained to Novethic Antoine Cardon, the general delegate of the Syndicate of spring waters and natural mineral waters.
However, the scientist deplores the methods of governance and water management that are increasingly disconnected from the needs of citizens, of which Montagnac is the perfect example. But this new project could well fall through in view of the latest decision by the Hérault prefecture to reject the installation of a new golf course, deemed too water-intensive…
2023-08-22 08:17:59
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