La Nouvelle République recently included a curious article about the Cher River and an organization, “Le Syndicat du Cher canalisé.”
 |
| Copyright La Nouvelle République |
The article describes the organization’s plans for 2014, which are supposed to include renovation of dams on the Cher, regulation of its flow, and balancing recreational use and environmental preservation. The article’s tone was entirely matter-of-fact; no issues; nothing about the possibility that the Syndicat’s plans for the dams, for example, might raise any questions.
It made me curious about a river described as canalisé and an organization that aims to preserve that condition by restoring dams and yet also claims to be preserving the environment.
A separate organization, “Les Amis du Cher Canalisé,” offers an interesting history of transporation on the river. In 1828 the Canal du Berry opened as far as Noyers-sur-Cher providing the first part of a link between Montluçon and Tours. The second part involved building a series of needle dams and locks to allow barges to connect to the Loire at Tours. Needle dams, developed in France at the beginning of the 19th century, are a type of low dam made of wooden slats, or needles. They aren’t intended to be water tight and needles can be added or removed to control the water level behind. The series of these dams on the Cher was completed in 1841. “Canalisé,” it turns out, doesn’t mean “channelized,” in the sense of the arrow-straight, cement-lined troughs the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers likes to construct. It means, rather, that, with the needle dams, the river could be used for transport as if it were a canal. And it appears it was. The “Amis” cite records reporting that 4,600 barges passed along the canalized portion in 1846. By the 1920s, this canal, like most others, had lost out to railroads and roadways. Eventually, in 1955, the national government removed the canal from its list of navigable waterways and responsibility for the canalized portion was handed over to the two departments through which it flows, the Indre-et-Loire and the Loir-et-Cher. For several years, the departments pretty much ignored the river. Then, in the 1990s, they became interested in the recreational and tourist potential. Through an interdepartmental entity, the Syndicat, they started restoring the needle dams to provide water deep enough for boating and canoeing and, eventually, a floating restaurant.
Meanwhile, in 2002, the national government declared the Cher to be a natural habitat for several migratory species of fish, including lampreys, shad, and eels. Within five years, dams would need to be modernized to allow for their passage. More or less since then there have been an on-going tensions between the Syndicat and Amis on one side, and environmental organizations on the other.
Recently, SOS Loire Vivante and several other environmental and fishing organizations have written to local authorities objecting to recent repairs to several of the needle dams damaged in flooding in 2013. They note that the dams have not been modified to provide for migratory species as the law requires. They propose what they term a compromise under which some of the dams would be maintained, provided they’re modified to accommodate migratory fish, and others would be dismantled.
