While his town was hit hard by floods last October, he denounces “a long and discouraging administrative millefeuille”. The charge was made by Dominique Bavoil, mayor of Saint-Rémy-lès-Chevreuse (Yvelines), during his wishes to the population on Wednesday evening.
According to him, the slowness of the procedures and the environmental constraints would have delayed the development measures of the Yvette, the river which overflowed during the two weather episodes which occurred on October 9 and 10 then 17 and 18. A situation which questions the elected official (without label): “What is the priority between the protection of dragonflies and that of the inhabitants? »
Dominique Bavoil insisted at length on the need to “accelerate the process of creating zones of flood expansion and river re-meandering”, a technique consisting of modifying the course of a watercourse to make it more winding and thus avoid overflows.
“We must learn lessons at all levels”
These essential processes for delaying flood phenomena had proven their effectiveness last April during an episode of heavy rainfall. Developments however “blocked by environmental laws surrounding the safeguarding of protected species such as crayfish and dragonflies” according to the mayor.
During the storm, the water sometimes rose up to 1.50 m in this town of 8,000 inhabitants located in the Chevreuse valley, at the crossroads of three rivers. For the mayor, “we must learn lessons from these floods at all levels and continue prevention actions with the intercommunal union for the hydraulic development of the Yvette valley (SIAHVY)”.
