A broad public debate opens Thursday for three months on a water treatment project in the Ile-de-France, an opportunity for all French people to express themselves on water, its use and its preservation, said the president of the National Commission for Public Debate (CNDP).
The CNDP was asked by Sedif, France’s largest water syndicate (133 municipalities around Paris), to organize the mandatory debate on its vast water treatment project. The Syndicat des eaux d’Ile-de-France (Sedif) wants to install a new filtration technique, at a cost of some 870 million euros, in its three main drinking water plants, which supply more than 4 million users.
This debate is not just for the people of the Ile-de-France,” says Ilaria Casillo, acting president of the CNDP, the independent authority responsible by law for organizing debates on projects with a strong environmental impact. “Any public debate is open to all. On this particular subject, who says that this project, which is expensive and not without impact, will not be applied to other plants?” she explains to AFP. “How is water governed? How is it controlled? Why do we buy bottled water? At a time when the subject of water is of great concern, and contestation, it is time to launch a debate that we hope will be a pilot,” she says.
Among the topics planned, the impact of warming on the resource, and the effects on the bill. The hot topic of megabasins is not on the list, but “I think it will come up. The public will spontaneously want to broaden the debate. There are no taboos. If these issues come up, we’ll deal with them,” says Casillo.
In the Ile-de-France region, the debate will take place at meetings held at the sites of the three Sedif plants. Stands of the CNDP will be set up during the weekend at the foot of the buildings, on the markets, along the rivers… Sedif, which has been chaired since 1983 by André Santini, wants to equip its sites with “high-performance” membrane filtration technology to provide water that is free of micropollutants, “chlorine-free” and “limescale-free”.
But the project will increase the power consumption of the plants, and the price of water (from 36 to 48 euros per year per household). It also implies an increase in water withdrawal (of about 15%) and the discharge into the natural environment of materials retained by the filtration. Sedif must renew the public service delegation, which has been entrusted to Veolia for 100 years. The future concession is due to come into effect on January 1, 2025, a contract worth four billion euros over 12 years.
