seven water catchments in Charente-Maritime will reopen to supply the La Rochelle area

The National Food Safety Agency (ANSES) has just revised upwards the vigilance threshold for the presence of chlorothalonil in drinking water. As a result, seven water catchments out of the fifteen in the Aunis plain, in Charente-Maritime, will be reopened.

The National Food Safety Agency (ANSES) recently decided to raise the vigilance threshold for chlorothalonil in drinking water. It goes from 0.1 micrograms per liter for so-called quality water to 0.9 micrograms per liter.

As a result, seven water catchments in the Aunis plain will be able to reopen. A decision that does not please environmental associations at all:

There have been no serious studies on living things. No new studies on the endocrine disruptor side. No long term effects. For us, it was done in a hurry.

Alain Chabrolle

Vice-President Nature Environment 17

Since last October, the services of the La Rochelle urban area have chosen to supply water via two water purification units on the banks of the Charente, where pesticide residues are less present. The community has also chosen to reopen only seven of the fifteen catchments in the Aunis plain:

Today we could have continued to distribute water with fairly high levels of chlorothalonil. Despite everything, we decided to try to reduce the presence of this molecule in the water as much as possible by opening the least impacted catchments and closing the most impacted.

Guillaume KRABAL

Vice-President of La Rochelle Agglomeration in charge of water

The distribution of drinking water will thus increase from 35,000 m² per day to 60,000 m² per day in the La Rochelle area, which should make it possible to meet the needs of tourists this summer.

Report by Marc Millet and Dounia Sirri :