ASSOCIATIONS AND RIVER BASIN COMMITTEES

Rhone-Mediterranean-Corsica Basin Committee
Rhone-Mediterranean-Corsica Water Agency
2-4 Allée de Lodz (near Avenue Tony Garnier)
69 363 Lyon Cedex 07, FRANCE

The 1992 Water Law requested the preparation within 5 years of Master Plans for Water Development and Management for each river basin.

In order to implement this heavy planning, most River Basin Committees have set up new structures: either they have opened their bureau to associations, or established a special commission (such as the planning commission in the Rhone-Mediterranean-Corsica region) with a seat for associations.

In addition, during the five years necessary to prepare SDAGEs in the different river basins, hundreds of parties concerned were able to voice their opinions in the meetings of geographic commissions (10 in the RMC basin). Local associations were thus able to express themselves. In RMC basin, the SDAGE project has been submitted to the associations by way of a specific dialogue (similar to the dialogue with socio-professionals).

Associations have thus been stakeholders in the reflections and decision-making, which is essential.

It was not a question of giving us a leading part but merely the opportunity of voicing our thoughts before any decision-making.

It involves motivated citizens, independent from the political world, as associations are entirely separate from political circles, political ecologists included (the opposite of what many people think).

Therefore, they are motivated, independent citizens who constitute a real network of field observers.

The part played by associations can be easily schematized.

They may be transmission links between the scientific world and that of the administrations and decision-makers through their representatives to the authorities. Some fighting circles can decipher scientific results and have them adopted by decision-makers through their representatives to the authorities. The link can also work in the other direction: associations can pass social demands on to the scientific world. This does not exclude a direct link between both scientific and administrative worlds.

This schematization which is more or less theoretical, cannot however be extended to the whole territory, although associations have been functioning in such a way for more than 10 years, with regard to water management in the RMC basin in particular.

On the other hand, associations are in direct contact with the public through their members and with the general public by way of their activities, conferences, etc... They can thus disseminate information, raise public awareness, etc...

They also can reach the public through the media...

This is obvious as far as water resources management is concerned: obtaining the user’s approval is a guarantee of effectiveness. Decision-making bodies are more and more convinced of this.

The representatives of associations in River Basin Committees belong to the body of users. But, to the contrary of other users -industrialists, consumers-, associations do not participate in the financing as they do not take part in the polluter-pays system. They are even different from fishermen that have just decided to pay a tax.

Indeed, in SDAGE and SAGE planning for which all the parties concerned meet around a table, we are the only ones with no particular interest and merely there to defend the natural environment.

The part played by associations within such a framework is above all that of a stimulus. It has been the case in RMC as regards several issues.

Associations concerned with environmental protection (AEP) have been a real stimulus for the management of alluvial plains.

AEPs, relying on recent scientific results, have greatly contributed to the taking into account of the three spatial dimensions in water course management. In particular, the taking into account of the transverse dimension of the hydrosystem, situating the water course in its alluvial plain, has enabled the notion of free space to emerge and important progress in the protection of the resource and related aquatic ecosystems to be made.

The first drafts of the RMC SDAGE appeared to be particularly light as regards hydroelectricity. The issue was to increase the requirements concerning the protection of the natural ecosystems and reach a compromise after negotiations.

The Associations have thus drawn up 10 proposals of recommendations to be included in the SDAGE.

These 10 proposals were negotiated with the industrialists concerned.

Out of our 10 proposals, 6 were adopted.

We obtained the implementation of the following recommendations:

a long-term monitoring of dam-reservoirs draining impact;

the destruction of structures abandoned for more than 30 years;

the preparation of a SAGE before the building of any large dam;

the preparation of a methodology for the follow-up of hydroelectric infrastructures whose operation poses problems, in order to possibly adapt their specifications;

SAGEs should control the infrastructures that are still operating;

the destruction of infrastructures built before 1919 should be envisaged when they are located on a fall which has become obsolete due to the construction of recent infrastructures.

 

We have obtained an agreement on the installation of new micro-power plants, in spite of the present impressive density of these plants ( 90 % of the water courses in the Alpine region are equipped with such hydro-power plants).

A third issue to which the associations gave an impulse during the preparation of the SDAGE is the pollution caused by radioactive elements (the Rhone is the river with the greatest number of nuclear plants, with more than 20 different plants located in the French section of its water course).

Within this framework, we have drawn up three precise proposals:

the discharge of all alpha elements in the natural environment should be forbidden (plutonium and other radioactive elements that are very toxic over a long period);

discharge standards should be lowered for nuclear power plants (as the plants only discharge a tenth of the authorized quantity);

the possibilities of treating tritium discharges should be seriously examined.

 

As regards the principle: the issue of radioactive pollution was raised thanks to the associations’ action (this is not negligible in France where nuclear power is much used).

In the field of operations: radioactive elements, that had been ignored at first, were subsequently related to other toxic products whose discharges were to be lowered to a minimum as a recommendation of the SDAGE.

As regards information:

The River Basin Committee has agreed to support research in order to prevent the discharge of long-life wastes and tritium

In addition, it has also agreed to enter radioactive elements into the basin data bases and networks and into the grid used for the evaluation of the quality of ecosystems.

This requires a follow-up of the radioactive-versus-environmental state of the Rhone and the setting-up of environmental references (the only present benchmark being that of « public health »).

Associations have also been a stimulus regarding another issue: that of granule extraction.

The fight on this issue was particularly tough, but some progress has been made. In the Adour-Garonne basin, the associations obtained that estuaries be considered as minor beds and that granule extraction be thus forbidden.

Associations have achieved great progress in most of the 6 basins as regards the protection of wetlands, flood-prone areas, riparian forests, alluvial groundwater, etc.

At the level of the sub-river basins and of the SAGE preparation, associations should be able to continue a dialogue at a more local level of a river basin and represent the river concerned as they are members of Local Water Commissions, responsible for the preparation of SAGEs.

But the participation of associations in all these bodies is limited and an issue of prime importance is raised:

can the part we play stay indefinitely free of charge if demands continue to increase?