A French dam -- Poutes on the Allier

A committee monitoring modifications to the Poutes Dam is reported to have had another productive meeting back in early December.  About 30 representatives of local governments, environmental groups, and others met in Le Puy-en-Velay under the direction of the préfet of the department of the Haute-Loire.  They were reviewing details of a project to transform a 17-meter-high (about 56 feet) structure that currently blocks access to spawning grounds for Atlantic salmon, into one about 4 meters high (about 13 feet) with up-to-date fish ladders.  Since construction in the midst of World War II, the dam has directed water through pipes to turbines downstream at Monistrol d'Allier generating about 82,000 megawatts of electricity annually.  It’s expected that, even with the dam at a quarter of the former height, electricity production should only fall by about 10 to 15 percent.

Existing and modified Poutes dam.  Source: zoomdici.fr

The Poutes dam is on the Allier River in the department of the Haute-Loire, about 35 km south of Le Puy-en-Velay.  It's a remote and mountainous part of France known, if at all, for the Beast of the Gevaudan, a giant wolf said to be responsible for the deaths of many peasants in the mid-18th century, and for Robert Louis Stevenson's travels in the area in 1878 with his donkey Modestine.
 
In advance of the expiration of EDF's (Électricité de France) operating license in 2007, environmentalists began trying to persuade authorities to deny renewal.  They argued that dismantling the dam would be an important step in restoring salmon to the river.  Dams and over-fishing had nearly eliminated the fish from the Loire and Allier until, in the 1990s, the government, prompted by environmental organizations, committed to a long-term restoration project.

Local government officials and some union organizations in the area expressed concern about losing EDF’s tax payments and undermining economic development efforts.  Generally, opponents argued, removing the dam would only marginally help the fish since they need to travel so far to get there and there are many other obstacles encountered along the way, so many, in fact, that relatively few salmon make it to Poutes.  They also argued that hydropower, as a clean form of energy, should be encouraged.

The government finally resolved the issue in July 2011 when it agreed to renew EDFs’ license based on the company’s proposed design for the lower version of the dam.  Generally, both sides expressed approval.

This is not as dramatic an environmental issue as many I’ve highlighted here.  It involves a smallish dam in a remote part of France.  But I have a couple of reasons for my interest.  One is personal; I visited Le Puy and the Haute-Loire in 2011 and one day I drove out to see the dam.  Since then, I’ve been trying to follow implementation of the redesign.  The second reason is more general.  There are lots of rivers in France, in the U.S. and in other countries with similar old dams producing relatively small amounts of power.  The issues involved in the Poutes conflict are probably relevant to the future of most of these dams, essentially restoration of a natural habitat vs maintaining a source of clean electricity.  The solution at Poutes, one that’s largely technical, seems like it could be relevant in other places.