In what state is the Canal du Midi? Not good according to Toulouse over the O. The Economic Club has been concerned for many weeks about the state of the Canal. Toulouse along the O has even questioned the candidates for the legislative elections in recent days to ask that we take care of the Canal, and even speaks of abandoning the Canal with consequences on the navigation of boats or on biodiversity. For Valérie Piganiol, the Canal du Midi and its 240 kilometers classified as World Heritage by Unesco is neglected. For the president of the Toulouse economic club over the O, the town hall of Toulouse lacks the means to properly clean the canal.
“We have the Midinet boat which was taken over under the Cohen mandate by the services of the city of Toulouse to be able to clean the Canal du Midi normally. Except that we realize today that the services of the city have not neither the human resources nor the technical means to make Midinet work. And it is absolutely necessary in the future to envisage something else. Our club plans to propose to the services of the city of Toulouse to open this market to other solutions. That can be other public services or even, why not, make our companies work. At the moment, the Canal du Midi is being dredged. It’s positive. And you have to see the pieces of rubbish that are removed .”
For VNF, the Canal is doing well
Most this observation is not shared by Voies Navigables de France in the south-west. 280 agents take care of the proper functioning of the Canal du Midi throughout the year. And the Canal is doing well, assures Henri Bouyssès, the director of VNF.
“The subject of waste is a subject which is completely shared with the local authorities in respect of their competences and we work effectively with these local authorities to manage to organize the maximum number of preventive actions. The Canal can sometimes be the support for waste which are illegal and in this case, we have the support of local authorities, particularly in Toulouse, which perfectly organize the management of waste by using a boat which thus provides all its support. We monitor the quality of the water. We have a function observatory with a number of data. And we now know that this water is completely correct.”
According to Valérie Piganiol, recently, “bicycles, fridges, clothes or dead animals have been taken out of the water. All this is super great for boat propellers”, she said, preferring to joke. Before specifying. “The owners have to call in companies two to three times a year to free their propellers. And it costs them 700 euros per call.”
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