new setback for the airship project in Gironde

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The project to establish a airship factory in Laruscade (Gironde) is struggling to convince the Environmental Authority (Ae). The Flying Whales company may have revised its copy, but it was not enough.

In its second advisory opinion, made public on Tuesday October 29, 2024, the Ae once again decries a “project [qui] cannot be authorized as it stands.” The main cause? Its location on a 75 hectare site, including around sixty natural wooded habitats.

Transport heavy loads by balloon

The Flying Whales factory must produce airships. They must represent a real “revolution in air cargo transport” by transporting heavy or indivisible loads (electricity pylons, tree trunks, etc.) in areas that are difficult to access.

Located two kilometers from Saint-Mariens station, the project includes two buildings 250 meters long and 70 meters high. They would host airship assembly, ground testing, flight testing and a test flight once a month. Around sixty airships should be produced over the first ten years.

The location was validated by the Directorate General of Aviation. “This is an important ecological corridor recognized as such for several protected species which adjoins two Natura 2000 zones,” decries the Ae.

Already, in November 2023, she deplored “the temporary or permanent destruction of 59 hectares of natural habitat and wetlands. The AE was clear: it was necessary to find another location or improve its environmental impact. The choice of land had to be demonstrated.

The second file submitted by Flying Whales on July 30, with an addition made on October 10, is heading in the right direction. The Ae recognizes “undeniable progress in the management of rainwater and runoff and in the search for new compensation sites, the importance of the project's damage to natural environments and protected species”.

But the project continues to “significantly underestimate” these consequences. They “were not considered as a major factor of the choice made” in terms of location, deplores the Ae. The close study area is not large enough.

For the Ae, “compensation commensurate with the ecological debt that the ZAE project would generate […] are not reached at this stage and do not seem achievable. She sites the environmental code to specify that “the project cannot be authorized as it stands. »

The main recommendation of the Ae is therefore to seek, with the assistance of the Directorate General of Aviation, a other location for this project which she considers “interesting in the context of the energy transition”.

A project defended tooth and nail by the Region

In a press release, the president of the Region Alain Rousset reiterated his support to the project. It takes into account the improvements noted by the Ae, the estimated creation of 300 direct jobs on the site. “The file is progressing and being refined,” he says.

“Attempting to choose another site would take a very grand retard to the project and would be very detrimental to it,” judges the president of Nouvelle-Aquitaine. Monday, November 18, the subject will be raised during a deliberation of the standing committee.

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