On the sidelines of a judicial investigation, opened by the Fontainebleau public prosecutor's office at the beginning of the week, into the origin of the pollution which has hit the waters of the Loing canal for a week, causing the death of thousands of fish due to lack of oxygen , of which more than 3 tonnes were extracted from the waters in just five days by fishermen, the prefect of Seine-et-Marne, seized on Friday October 25 by the Departmental Fire and Rescue Service (Sdis 77) and the police water, has just issued two orders this Friday, November 1st.
The first prefectural decree prohibits access to the towpath between locks 8 and 10 to let local fishermen's associations organize their fishing to save surviving fish which can still be saved and returned to the water in the Loing, a neighboring river. of the canal.
The second decree asks Voies navigables de France, the service in charge of managing the river and the Loing canal, to begin emptying the canal reach located between the Beaumoulin lock in Souppes-sur-Loing and the Buttes lock in Nemours. That is to say a section of approximately 12 km whose water must be diluted with that of the river in proportions to avoid reproducing other pollution of the natural watercourse. The operation should take around twenty days so as not to damage the banks.
“Given the volumes involved and the flow of the river, this is the solution which seems the least dangerous,” specifies the secretary general of the prefecture of Seine-et-Marne, Sébastien Lime, contacted this Friday morning. “We will be very vigilant about what is released into the Loing River. We will measure the evolution of the composition of the water and in particular its oxygen concentration. This is the meaning of the approach. As soon as a fish finds itself belly up to the surface in the Loing, we stop everything! »
The mayor of Bagneaux-sur-Loing, Claude Jamet, present every day on site since the first report, will file a complaint against X, as will VNF, the departmental fishing federation and the local fishermen's association AAPPMA La Vandoise et le Gardon du Loing.
“We have never seen pollution of this magnitude. The Loing canal is rich in more than twenty species of fish. We try to save as many as possible by mobilizing our associations, external fishermen, etc. And we will continue as long as there are fish to save,” Maxime Lesimple, director of the departmental fishing federation which brings together 40 associations and 16,000 fishermen in Seine-et-Marne. According to Franck Le Grand, president of the same association, “around a hundred eels, around fifty pike and young perch and roach have already been saved since the start of the week”.
