The prefect of Pyrénées-Orientales warned on Tuesday that due to the exceptional drought in this department it will run out of water quickly. “There will not be enough water for all uses. […] The quantities available are very small,” said Prefect Rodrigue Furcy after a meeting attended in particular by the presidents of the departmental council and the chamber of agriculture, as well as mayors.
Stating that a meeting of the drought committee is scheduled for Thursday, he announced that “there will be difficult decisions to be made”, that it will be necessary to “extend or modify” the water restriction order in force until April 30, because “April is the driest month since 1959” and “the situation is extremely tense”.
“There are about twenty municipalities in which there are tensions on the resource by the end of the summer”, specified the prefect, adding that the services of the State and the regional health agency are working with these municipalities “to put in place back-up solutions.” “The agricultural world is on the front line, the losses announced are enormous”, added the representative of the association of mayors of the department, Jean-Paul Billès, mayor of Pézilla-la-Rivière.
“The restrictions we have been under since last summer have put our cultures in survival mode. We’re on a 70% water restriction. I don’t think we can go any further. We are doing everything possible to save the crops this year,” added the president of the chamber of agriculture, Fabienne Bonet. On Monday, Hermeline Malherbe, socialist president of this department bordering Spain, challenged the head of state Emmanuel Macron in a letter, pointing out the risk of “human catastrophe”, of “ecological catastrophe, economic tomorrow”.
The Pyrénées-Orientales, where the first big fire of the year in France covered around 1,000 hectares on April 17, has not seen “any major rain […] for more than a year”, she said. recalled, asking “the establishment of a solidarity fund” to help the agricultural and tourism sectors.
Carole Delga, socialist president of the Occitanie region, supported this request on Tuesday, announcing “an exceptional device of one million euros to support the agricultural world as well as communities”. “This envelope can be mobilized for the purchase of tank trucks for the supply of drinking water, or tanks, water tons or means of watering the herds in order to allow the animals to climb to the mountain pastures”, a she said, visiting the towns affected by the fire in mid-April.
In the Pyrénées-Orientales, a department known for its large production of fruits and vegetables, 4 villages, totaling more than 3,000 people, are even deprived of drinking water and bottles distributed to the inhabitants. The borehole that usually supplies them being at its lowest, a connection was made to another, but the water is not drinkable, according to the first analyses.
