Should we build methanization plants? “We are being told about biogas when there is nothing organic about it, no gas is organic”

Four farmers want to build a methanization unit in Nécy (Orne) in an area “which has no particular environmental issues”, they argue. The project is led by Méthabio Normandie. Local residents are opposed to it. Their association, Les Hérissons Masques, took legal action.

The masked hedgehogs found themselves before the administrative court of Caen (Calvados), Tuesday December 3, 2024. The association of dissatisfied residents with the evocative name took legal action three years ago, when it discovered the project to establish a methanization plant in Nécy, in Orne.

Supported by Méthabio Normandie for seven years, it provides for a four-hectare site comprising three storage tanks, one of which has a capacity of 10,000 m³. A methanization plant which would receive 25,000 tonnes of waste from Orne, Sarthe and Manche to transform it into gas and resell it to GRDF.

This large-scale project does not go down well with residents of Nécy, who say they were not adequately warned ahead of the project. Among the arguments invoked during the hearing, the association’s lawyer mentioned the distance from farms, the risk of water pollution, the risk of land artificialization as well as the integration of the factory into its environment.

In fact, the site is placed in a cone of view, an area regulated by the territorial coherence scheme (SCoT). This is a landscaped viewpoint, here on the Caen plain, more or less protected from the construction of new real estate projects.

For their part, the four farmers involved in the factory project say they are rather confident about the outcome of the administrative court’s verdict.

“All projects are open to attack obviously, but it remains a project which is very well done and which has a file that is much more than complete, it was enough to listen to the conclusions of the prosecutor of Caen to realize this.”, declares one of their representatives.

These are just basic general arguments on methanization, this is a site which has no particular sensitivity in an area which does not have any particular environmental issues.

A representative of Methabio Normandie

The lawyer for the masked hedgehog association knows this well: her arguments have little chance of convincing the court, which is only interested in the form and not the substance of the case. “In 90% of cases, the court follows the position of the public rapporteur“, she warns.

The two residents know it too, but have still decided to attack the project, out of principle.

We come with full knowledge of the facts, we expect the court’s response. But we assume that it is a citizen reflex. This is a question that we can address to society: if people were more attentive to their rights and the respect that we owe them as citizens, it would be less easy to carry out these kinds of projects on the sly.

Laurent Gapaillard

Treasurer of the Masked Hedgehogs

Basically, the president and the treasurer have a lot to say and fear a greenwashing operation on the part of Méthabio Normandie. One of the four farmers would, for example, bring effluent from more than 100 km away, which would come from an industrial chicken farm.

“They hide behind an aspect that is presented to us as sustainable and virtuous when in reality that is not at all the issue for them, it is simply financial, but we dress it in green by presenting it as a biogas even though it has nothing organic, no gas is organic anyway“, calmly affirms the president of the masked hedgehogs, Dominique Delanoë.

The Caen administrative court will render its decision within three weeks, the masked hedgehogs reserve the right to appeal. The farmers are already planning to meet to decide on the continuation of the project. “The goal is for this project to emerge from the ground and emerge in our interest, but also in the general interest.”, declares Vincent Meyer.