Work to install a micro hydroelectric power station on a river, near Yssingeaux (Haute-Loire), is causing an outcry from local fishermen. Complaints are being filed with the French Biodiversity Office.
Near Yssingeaux (Haute-Loire), the Auze is a mid-mountain river which, like most rivers in the department, is weakened by repeated droughts. Local residents are worried about the impact of the work of a micro hydroelectric power plant against which they have been fighting since 2017, in vain: “The work started during a period which was prohibited. No work was supposed to be carried out between October 15 and April 30. The banks were destroyed and they sent stones back into the river. This disturbs the trout”says Robert Clémençon, president of the Yssingeaux and Sucs fishing association.
There are already around forty micropower plants on rivers in Haute-Loire. Today, the Fishing Federation insists on the need to no longer install them : “We are here to protect our aquatic environments and we are for improving what already exists. We generally reach consensus to improve the power plants, so that they produce better and produce more and in the right way , without damaging the aquatic environments too much since they already exist. There, we will lose around 1.8 km of reserved flow. There will be an epsilon flow in the river and everything else will be turbined and pass through pipes. This “is not what we want, as defenders of the aquatic environment”, indicates Florian Chopard-Lallier, director of the Haute-Loire Fishing and Aquatic Environment Protection Federation.
For opponents, the benefit of electricity production, for the equivalent of 200 homes, is disproportionate to the future damage : “This will leave 80 liters of water in the river, which corresponds to 3 buckets of water, during the summer. The river bed will be completely or almost dry and there will be a trickle of water left at the middle of the river. All the microorganisms will disappear, or almost. Who says microorganism, says food for the birds, food for the trout…All that will be turned upside down”, says Christian Peyron, president of the Auze basin protection collective. The owner of the micro hydroelectric plant did not respond to our request for an interview. An administrative clarification with State services is expected before resuming work. Note that the micropower plant was validated by the prefecture in July 2019 and administrative appeals exhausted in April 2023.
2024-03-04 20:59:20
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