Volunteers and residents have been mobilizing for two years in Haut-Rhin, against a concerted development zone project which should attract businesses and businesses to the Florival valley. Promises of jobs and activity do not convince them at all.
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This Tuesday, November 12 afternoon, there were around twenty members, from around ten associations, to express their refusal to transform 27.5 hectares into an economic activity zone, in Issenheim (Haut-Rhin).
The project of the Community of Communes of the Guebwiller region consists of extending the existing area of activity du Florival (around twenty kilometers south of Mulhouse), to attract new businesses or allow existing ones to expand. On its website, the community of communes states that it wants “promote land strategically located near communication routes and as an extension of an existing area in order to create synergies and pursue urbanization in a coherent manner.”
The community council purchased the place called Daweid in 2020, with the aim of expanding the economic heart of the territory, on its eastern flank.
Around ten associations from the valley, grouped within the Daweid collective, were present at the event. “It's been two years since we created the collective “Alternatives Daweid”. Today, the problems are known to everyone, it is the artificialization of soils, concreteization”, deplores Eric Hueber, member of the collective. “We have recently seen in Spain what this can have as a consequence. Even if there is corn, it is an area where water, in the event of strong storms, can be accommodated. Whereas if it is concrete, we know very well that water runs over it and creates disasters.”
A difficult dialogue with elected officials, who want to see their project through. “We have a lot of difficulty making our voice heard, which is to preserve natural areas. With global warming, we will have to maintain this type of terrain, it creates islands of coolness while concrete creates islands of heat. Elsewhere, we are removing concrete from schoolyards and parking lots and here, we are going to do the opposite.”
We were received by the various elected officials, who listened to us, but unfortunately not heard
Collective Alternative Daweid
This Tuesday, November 12 is the start day of archaeological excavation work, obligatory before any construction project.
The construction site should not start before several years of studies and brought to standards. For example, the planned wastewater treatment plant must be up to standard in 2028, so nothing can happen between now and then, but the project is still moving forward administratively.
Preventive archaeological excavations before the work.
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© Stéphane Gaudry / France televisions
For Jean-Louis Grandidier, another member of the Alternatives Daweid collective: “When we artificialize land, we destroy the life there and the possibilities of feeding the population, which are fundamental issues for our future. Today, we are doing this for short-term profit while we knows very well that in a few years we will run out of land.”
Without forgetting, he specifies, that the land is bordered by a watercourse, the Rimbach, which once flowed through this area. In his eyes, these are floods to come, without a doubt.
