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Lucile Akrich
Published on
June 30, 2024 at 8:26 a.m.
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During the agglomeration council which was held Tuesday June 25, 2024 rue Gosciny, in La Roche-sur-Yon, the elected officials of the territory voted for a deliberation removing the Coux quarry from the inventory of heritage made available to Vendée Eau.
The Coux quarry is this large water reserve (one million cubic meters), located below the headquarters of the La Roche-sur-Yon cycling club, rue Olof-Palme.
Prohibited access, it has not been exploited for decades.
She was until now made available to the departmental union which manages drinking water resources in Vendée. In the event of a disaster.
A “tourist-oriented” project in the pipeline
The elected officials of the City and the Yonnais Agglomeration have been working on this issue for around five years. What to do with the exceptional site of the Coux quarry? Contacted, Luc Bouard announces that a project will be unveiled “by the end of 2024”. “A project for tourism and the protection of biodiversity”, reveals the mayor of La Roche-sur-Yon and president of the agglomeration, to benefit local visitors. Hotel, reception hall and sports complex. Without revealing more, the mayor-president assures that the site, today closed to the public and framed by a fence, will become in the years to come, a “space of relaxation”, of leisure, while remaining a sanctuary of biodiversity .
“It will be a shared place,” adds Yannick David, vice-president in charge of tourism at the Agglomeration. “We have a real ambition for this magnificent site!” he proclaims. “It’s Switzerland in our agglomeration, this quarry! It will be a strong marker of our Valleys Plan.” The elected official rules out developing mass tourism in this natural space. “It is also out of the question to exploit the basin: we leave it as it is,” adds Luc Bouard. “In case, in future years, we need this water reserve again. »
The opposition warns of the risks of delivery
Its removal from the Vendée Eau heritage inventory has sparked the disapproval of the opposition elected officials of Yonne (gauche).
You say that Vendée Eau no longer needs the Carrière des Coux, that surprises me.
The elected official did not hide his concern for future years, the transport of water resources to the city.
“It is not enough to have other reserves nearby, we must also be able to transport water in the event of a failure at the water purification plant or a water shortage,” insisted Stéphane Ibarra.
Water shortages are a recurring problem in the summer in Vendée.
“To my knowledge, the network interconnections in La Roche-sur-Yon do not allow water to be supplied.”
A new connection
“If La Roche-sur-Yon has chosen to join the departmental water management union, it is precisely to deal with the risk of shortages that Vendée regularly faces,” explained the vice-president in charge of the file, Anne Aubin-Sicard.
The elected official explained why Vendée Eau no longer needs the La Roche-sur-Yon quarry.
You may not know this, but when the Northern bypass was doubled, Vendée Eau took the opportunity to install an additional emergency pipeline.
Today, La Roche-sur-Yon is completely interconnected to the departmental network.
“So, if we had a problem tomorrow at Moulin Papon, we would be helped by the rest of the departmental territory.” And vice versa.
Yannick David, vice-president of Vendée Eau confirms.
It was in the past, but today, the Coux quarry is no longer a strategic reserve for Vendée Eau.
Areas of work to avoid shortages of drinking water
Anne-Aubin Sicard then detailed the actions on which Vendée Eau is working to improve the resource: the reduced water consumption by the Vendéens, “considerable since the 2000s”; there network renovation to avoid losses; Modernization of drinking water production plants, “Moulin Papon is a blatant example”; there raising of certain dams (Apremont dam); the Jourdain project in Les Sables-d’Olonne to make wastewater drinkable.
These arguments did not convince the opposition representatives, who voted against this resolution.
Stéphane Ibarra also recalled that the career of Coux benefited from a remarkable biodiversity.
Luc Bouard, the president of the agglomeration council, simply assured:
“The Coux quarry is the subject of all our attention. »
Without detailing the development project under consideration.
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