Restoration in the Loire estuary

At the beginning of September, early in the morning, a group of government officials with responsibilities for the Loire invited the press out to La Varenne, a small town on the left bank about a half hour drive upstream from Nantes.  The journalists had been invited to a presentation of a complex contract among multiple parties to begin to try to fix serious problems in the river.

Since the early 20th century public authorities, employing multiple methods, concentrated the flow of water, to deepen the channel and maintain the port at Nantes.  The methods included closing off secondary arms as they passed around islands, constructing hundreds of wing dams, mining sand and gravel from the main channel, and eliminating a rocky underwater sill at Bellevue, just above Nantes.

A secondary arm blocked off.

From GIP Loire-Estuaire press kit,

2 September 2015

All this turned out to be too successful.  The force of the channelized water has been scouring out the river bottom to the extent that the measured low water mark at Nantes is 3.5 meters (11.48 feet) below the mark at the beginning of the 20th century.  This has undermined docks, bridges and riverbanks.  It has threatened, and in some cases eliminated, habitats around secondary arms and oxbow lakes.  Concentrating the river also opened it up to tidal effects.  Initially, tidal salt water would advance to a point just below Nantes.  These days, it has pushed a further 35 km (22 miles) up to Ancenis.  Drinking water utilities for Nantes and other towns have had to likewise move upstream for their supplies.

Since at least 2002, a special purpose public agency, the GIP (Groupement d'intérêt public) Loire-Estuaire has been looking for ways to halt the scouring and perhaps reverse the process.  They want to slow down the flow so more suspended material can be deposited; they also want to reconnect the river with old secondary branches.  The GIP has experimented with reducing or taking down the wing dams, creating artiificial sills, and using heavy equipment to reconnect the river to previoiusly blocked off parts.

Over the next two years, the first phase of restoration work is expected to cost 6.92 million euros ($7.4 million). This figure is expected to increase to 18 million euros ($19.2 million) during the 2018-2020 phase, primarily for work filling in the main channel.  Eventually over the full 15 years envisioned for the project the restoration should cost in the neighborhood of 62 million euros ($66 million).

As encouraging and really exciting as all of this is, I have to say something about the arrangements for management and oversight.  For a country known for its centralized administration, the arrangements are complicated, to say the least.  The press document prepared at the beginning of September includes a long list of “actors in the contract.”  These include major actors like the Agence d’eau Loire-Bretagne, the Region, the State, the GIP Loire Estuaire, and the Conservatoire d’espaces naturels des Pays de la Loire.  But they also include individual towns and groups of towns along the river.  A diagram shows these all grouped within a Commission des acteurs de la Loire, tied to a (presumably) executive Comité de pilotage, itself connected to a Comité des procédures (directed by the prefet of the department of the Loire-Atlantique) and a Comité technique (including technical experts).  But where are the authorizing and funding agencies?  How can they be held accountable for use of public funds in an arrangement that appears to make it difficult to do so ?

A paddle wheeler on the Loire

Consider a new way to see the heart of France.  In April, the European river tour company, CroisiEurope, began offering voyages along the Loire.  Its brand new Loire Princesse, with very comfortable looking accommodations for about 100, promises travelers views along the river from Saint Nazaire on the Atlantic up to Angers and its famous chateau, a distance of about 150 km or just over 90 miles.

Map: Ouest France

The ship, built in the Saint-Nazaire shipyards, was specially designed to accommodate the often shallow and unpredictable river.  It’s 90 meters long by 15 meters wide (about 300 feet by 50 feet), but draws only 80 centimeters (2.6 feet) of water and, rather than propellers, is driven by side paddle wheels.  The Loire Princesse may be the first passenger ship on the river since the early steam-powers ships of the mid-19th century, the curiously-named inexplosibles.

Photo: Bernard Biger

But this year, according to an mid-summer article in the Nantes newspaper, Ouest France, the river turned out to be even more unpredictable than CroisiEurope anticipated.  An especially dry summer meant a shallower river than anticipated, so much so that several times even the 80 centimeter draft was too much and the ship ran aground.  And it was discovered that dealing with the current, when squeezed between bridge footing, required more push than the paddle wheels could manage.  The company had to call in tugs for an occasional extra push.

Contacted by Ouest France, environmentalists in the area seemed mildly bemused.  Tourism in the river isn’t necessarily a bad thing they said.  It could build appreciation for the area's natural beauty.  They’re concerned, though, that as the ship's difficulties get resolved that it be the one to adapt to the river and not the reverse.  That makes good sense.  Meanwhile, it will be interesting to follow how this all works out.

Dredging and the Nantes-Saint-Nazaire Port

The Grand Port Maritime de Nantes et Saint-Nazaire (GPM) is likely the most important economic actor in the Loire estuary.  Along the stretch of the river from the Atlantic Ocean to Nantes, the GPM is responsible for nearly 25,000 jobs.  The Saint-Nazaire-Nantes complex is France’s fourth largest port with nearly 27 million tons of goods passing in and out, 90 percent of which involves facilities at Saint-Nazaire along the north side of the river.  

Portion of Saint-Nazaire Port with Airbus transport ship in the foreground

Last week, as required by French law, the GPM published its strategic plan for the next five years, including plans for 170 million euros in new investments.  Clearly almost anything the Port does will have implications for the estuary environment.  And the planning document doesn’t ignore this.  Virtually a third of its 60 pages are given to “spacial planning and sustainable development” (aménagement et développement durable).

I’ll probably come back to the Port and to more of this document, but right now I just want to highlight one element.  That has to do with dredging.  To provide access to larger ships, the Port dredges along the docks and out into the Atlantic.  It also clears out the channel at several critical points upstream for ships going to the few port facilities at Nantes.

Multiple studies have identified a severe drop in the river’s low-water level as the most serious environmental issue in the estuary.  The combination of sand and gravel extraction, wing dams to concentrate water flow, and dredging to provide ship access has caused the river to dig deeper and deeper into its bed.  Near Angers the bed is about six and a half feet below what it was in 1900; at Nantes it’s about 12 feet lower.

This has had serious consequences, especially between Les Ponts-de-Cé (on the river just below Angers) and Nantes.  Wetland environments in arms of the river have dried up; bridge pilings have been exposed to erosion; the tidal effect carrying salt water upstream has advanced beyond Nantes requiring that city and others to relocate pipes for drinking water supplies.  A massive silt plug between Saint-Nazaire and Nantes seriously impedes migratory fish like salmon and eels.

The GPM plan does mention dredging and promises “to reduce the environmental impact” but is non-specific beyond that.  Also, it’s quite possible that by “environmental impact” the Port is not even referring the effect on the river bed, but to a separate issue relating to disposal of dredged material.

Meanwhile, it appears that a restoration project aimed at the stretch upstream between Nantes and Les Ponts-de-Cé is finally getting underway.  I’ll say more about this in another post.  For now, it strikes me as unfortunate, to say the least, that the Port’s planning document doesn’t connect to the this project.

Ibis in the Estuary

I was out on my first day of walking.  I’d just left a path cutting through summer pasture lands along the west side of the Lac de Grand-Lieu.  The lake is barely 15 miles from Nantes to the southwest.  Winter rains turn it into the largest lake in France.  In the summer, though, with less rainfall and the local water authority releasing water into the Loire, the lake surface is cut in half, opening up pastures where local farmers graze dairy and beef cattle.  I was getting bearings before going off in a new direction and I noticed three birders coming up the path, binoculars around their necks.  We exchanged “bonjours” and one asked if I’d happened to see any ibis on my walk.  I said no, that with all the cows I’d mostly had my head down concentrating on where I put my feet.  I think they smiled.

I knew just barely that Lac de Grand-Lieu was an important stopover for birds on a major north-south flyway.  I though I might see herons or storks, but not this bird from Egyptian mythology.

Then, a week later, I saw two of them.  By now I was quite a ways from the Lake, maybe 25 miles to the northwest.  I was out on a day hike looking, not for birds, but for the Menhir de Pierre Bonde.  According to the map, it was supposed to be in a marshy field a mile or so south of the Loire.  Menhirs are sprinkled all over France.  Many, if not most, are like this one, large stones usually standing upright, frequently alone.

  The fact that they have no geologic reason for being where they are means, most likely, that an ancient people put them there.  The mystery is how and why.  Maybe, like England’s Stonehenge, they had some ceremonial function.  Here, the menhir stood out, orange lichens coloring the top, rising up in the middle of someone’s private, fenced-off field.  

And there, just off to the right of the stone, were the two ibis.  These were sacred ibis with large white bodies, black tail feather, black feet, and a black head which seemed to have been compressed by powerful forces to squeeze out a long, downwardly-curved, black beak.

 

Later, at the bed & breakfast where I was staying, thinking I had a rare sighting, I mentioned it to the host.  Oh, she said, they aren’t at all rare, in fact, she added, they’re considered an invasive species.  I read later that a zoo in the area had imported the birds sometime in the 70s.  At some point, a few birds escaped and began to reproduce.  A 2006 census counted 1,700 pairs and a total of about 5,000. 

Concerns had been growing about the possible consequences of this new bird.  It was said that ibis were eating the eggs and chicks of other birds like herons and terns.  More, they might be carrying diseases picked up from feeding on waste dumps.  As a result the government began an eradication program, shooting birds and piercing eggs in the nests.  It was successful.  Another census in 2013 found the ibis population had been cut by nearly 80 percent.

Is it possible that this was all a mistake?  That this invasive species isn’t necessarily harmful and might even be beneficial?  This was the conclusion of an article published two years ago based on more than 10 years of analysis of the ibis diet.  All of the data came from birds in the local department of Loire-Atlantique.  Loïc Marion, a researcher at the University of Rennes, found no evidence that ibis eat eggs or chicks of other birds, nor than they eat more than incidentally from waste dumps.  On the other hand, he found than more than 40 percent of the birds’ diet consists of Louisiana crayfish, itself an invasive species that has infested the Lac de Grand-Lieu.

There’s probably an important lesson in this.  Certainly some invasive species create serious problems.  Besides the Louisiana crayfish, nutria and catfish are also causing headaches along the Loire.  But, as the case of the ibis suggests, simply saying a species is invasive isn’t enough to establish that it’s really a problem.  In a world where so many plants and animals are already dispersed and intermixed, some amount of careful analysis is needed before deciding on the kind of eradication program used against the ibis.  Happily, for the moment at least, it’s still possible to happen on a pair in a field somewhere along the estuary.

Back on the Loire

One of my favorite people just started a blog.  I was reading and enjoying what she had to say, and, at the same time, I started thinking maybe it’s time to return to my own.  So, after much too much time, here I am again.

Last month, in September, I spent ten days back along the Loire.  I was on the south side of the estuary, in the portion between the old port city of Nantes and the Atlantic ocean.  Rather than riding my bike, I planned to walk this time.  I’d carry my clothes and a few odds and ends in a backpack, walking between B&Bs.  Each would be about 7 to 10 miles apart.  A friend periodically urges me to “get off your bike and see the country on foot.”  So I did.  

Recently renovated control house at the Canal de Buzay with
diagram displaying hydraulic regulation

What drew me to the estuary was the hydrology.  Without human engineering, the last 60 or so kilometers of the river, would be soggy marshlands, periodically soaked by high tides and spring floods.  Over many years — especially since the beginning of the 18th century — local landowners have joined together to construct what has ultimately become a dense networks of drainage ditches, canals, water gates and pumps, all together creating extensive pasture lands, mostly used now for cattle raising.

I didn’t expect to see all of the network on my walk.  But I expected to see some of it and to at least get a feel for this particular section of the Loire.  I did, but not at all in the way I’d expected.  To be continued. 

Funding uncertainty for the Plan Loire 2015-2020

For 20 years a series of multi-year plans have guided management of the Loire River basin.  Generally, each "Plan Loire Grandeur Nature" has concentrated on flood control, restoration of natural habitats, and tourism.  (Persuading UNESCO to designate the central Loire with all of its chateaux as a “World Heritage Site” was a project in one of the early plans.)

The fourth plan, due to run from 2015 through 2020, has been adopted, but France’s recent territorial reforms could end up undermining part of its funding.  Europe committed 33 million euros under its program for regional development back in November of last year.

But the domestic commitment is more complicated.  Plan funding comes from the national government, the regions within the Loire basin, and in some cases individual departments.  Funding commitments are currently being negotiated through a process leading to a contract between the regions and the national government ("Contrat de plan interrégional État-Région" (CPIER)).

The problem for the 2015-2020 Plan is that over the next year regional, and in some cases departmental, organizational arrangements are being reshuffled following Paris’ decision to reduce the number of regions from 22 to 13.  For the regions and departments it’s hard to commit to funding a six-year plan when you’re not sure what your own finances will be a year from now.

A river-friendly dam? Poutès update

Hydroelectric dams may produce clean energy but they generally mess up a river.  Still, a redesigned dam in the mountains of central France might be a model for accommodating river environments with energy production.

© Richard Mounts

Since 1941, a 56-foot high dam in the upper reaches of the Allier River at a place called Poutès has generated power for Électricité de France (EDF).  For years, environmental groups argued that the dam blocked migrating salmon from reaching spawning groups and disrupted the river valley ecology by interfering with the normal flow of sediments.

EDF’s operating license expired in 2007 and environmentalists opposed renewal.  They wanted to see the dam decommissioned and dismantled, as had been done a few miles upstream at Saint-Étienne-du-Vignan (in the department of the Lozère near Naussac Lake).  On the opposite side, public officials and others pushed to preserve a source of clean energy and, along with it, the tax revenues to local communities.

Existing dam.  ©EDF

The standoff was finally resolved in July 2011 when EDF presented a new version of the dam.  This design would lower the dam to just 13 feet and would include accommodations for fish and sediments.  For the last three years, EDF has been building and testing a 1/13th scale model of the “new Poutès”; they avoid calling it a dam.  Besides redesigned fish ladders, the new installation will include special valves to be opened during high-water periods to allow sediment flow.  A lower barrier will also mean a smaller reservoir and a more natural river valley.  Currently, the water backs up for more than two miles.  When the new structure is completed, this will drop to about 300 yards.  Even with the much lower structure and freer water flow EDF expects to continue to generate 85 percent of the power current output.

Proposed dam.  ©EDF

The project is back in the news (at least in the Haute-Loire) because a public comment period opened at the beginning of this month.  The issue is still the decision by the Ministry of the Environment to grant EDF a new 50-year operating license.  At the beginning of January, residents in the 26 small communities along the affected portion of the river all received a brochure with information about the project and how to submit opinions.  This time, given support among all the previously contending parties, serious opposition seems unlikely.  The comment period closes on February 5 and some expect government approval within a couple of months.  EDF says it would start construction towards the end of 2016, with completion likely in about three years.

The Cher "Canalized"

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.

Flood control on the Loire

Brives-Charensac is a small town on the Loire River adjacent to Le Puy-en-Velay.  It’s deep in the Massif Central, not far from the river's headwaters.  In 1980, waters from a massive rain storm swept down the river, flooded parts of the town and killed nine people.  Ever since then flood control has been a sensitive issue for the Brivois.

© Zoomdici.fr

A push in the late 1980s to build a dam at Serre-de-la-Fare upstream from the town was in large part justified as a way to prevent a repeat of the 1980 flooding.  But several years of environmental opposition to the dam, including a five-year camp-in on the construction site, finally convinced the government that, technically and environmentally, it made more sense to use land use controls than dams and levees to prevent flooding risks.

In the mid-1990s regulations were adopted to prevent new construction in at-risk zones, business installations were relocated with public assistance, and several projects were carried out to improve the river’s flow through the town.  Last week, the issue of flood control and land-use planning was revived when the government presented new maps with new definitions of at-risk areas in the flood plain.  Generally, the new maps double the lands within Brive defined as having a potential for serious flooding.  The maps are still in draft form for purposes of public discussion.

In large measure the new maps area a response to the "Xynthia" storm in 2010 that hit coastal areas, ripping through levees, destroying property, and killing more than 50 people.  Now, new government rules now place much less faith in levee protection.  If the new maps are finally adopted, Brive, and other towns along the river, will need to substantially revising the zoning rules and place new limits on areas of permissible development.  Understandably they are not happy.  The maps area expected to be finalized by the end of this year.

Following the Loire: Day One

Day One from Saint-Étienne to Feurs (24 July 2013)

I started with a short detour to Cycles Marcon on the rue Bergson; the street is a major thoroughfare running north in the middle of the city.  I'd forgotten to pack my cycling gloves.  The evening before, I'd found a nearly new store near the hotel called Cyclable specializing in "city bicycle riding."  I'm pleased to see new stores like this, and hope it's part of a successful trend (I came across another Cyclable branch in Orléans.)  But apparently city bicycle riders don't bother with gloves.  Cycles Marcon was a real bicycle store and I found what I needed.

Leaving Saint-Étienne, I'd planned to ride to Aurec-sur-Loire.  This was where I'd left off riding two years ago when I'd started at the source of the Loire at le Gerbier de Jonc and rode the first 200 kilometers.  But I should have studied the map better; and it should have been a topo map.  Saint-Étienne is set in a kind of bowl of hills.  A few, more or less flat routes lead out but they're mostly heavily-traveled roadways.  Probably for this reason Google maps directs a cyclist to take to the hills.  But Google maps may not know the cyclist is carrying 20 pounds of baggage.

Hills just outside of Saint-Étienne

I'd planned on averaging roughly 22 -- 25 kph.  As it turned out, between the hills and a couple of wrong turns, I probably averaged half of that for the first couple of hours.  I was getting worried that it could end up being a very long day.  At a point just west of Firminy, a town known for a le Corbusier project, Google Maps brought me to La Côte Martin.  I was facing a barely-paved pathway, way too steep to ride.  I wondered who devises these routes?  Was it some kid back at Google headquarters in Mountain View, who had no idea of the roads in this part of the world, who wanted to send me up this hill?  This wasn't going to work.  Looking at the map again, I could see there wasn't really any alternative; If I was going to go to Aurec-sur-Loire, I would have to do a lot of climbing.  At that point, it was nearly 1 p.m. and I still had about 50 km to go.  I decided I'd have to compromise a little in my commitment to ride the full length of the river.  Just ahead, along a nice, flat road, was Le Pertuiset.  It was on the river.  I could pick up my Loire route there.  It would only be 7 km downstream from Aurec.

Vacation homes at Le Pertuiset on the Lac de Grangent

But on the bridge at Le Pertuiset I saw that the road was going up again.  The Grangent Dam is about 6 km downstream from the bridge and has flooded any possible route down close to the river banks.  To go north towards Feurs I needed to climb up the D108 above the west side of the Lac de Grangent, the lake behind the dam.  Sometimes, after all the fretting, a climb can turn out actually to be fun.  From Le Pertuiset to the top of the climb at Chambles is about 7 km.  Over that distance the road rises about 200 meters (about 650 feet), which means a gradient of a little less than 3 percent.  But I didn't know that when I was riding.  All the way up I worried that the road would get steeper around the next bend.  And, at the same time, I was continually relieved that it didn't.  Most of France was suffering from a heat wave that week, including the areas around Saint-Étienne.  But long stretches of this road were shaded; I don't recall ever breaking into much of a sweat.  I also don't recall encountering more than one or two cars; several other cyclists, yes, but few, if any, cars.  At the top I felt great.  Coming to France I believed I was in decent shape.  But I wouldn't know for sure until I started riding.  The steep roads out of Saint-Étienne and the decision to turn away from La Côte Martin had made me nervous.  Here, though, I rode without any real strain.  I could handle this.

After the descent from Chambles, most of the rest of route to Feurs followed flat, straight roads.  Between the Monts du Lyonais off to the east and the Monts du Forez to the west, the Loire has created a wide, rich valley for agriculture.  I rode through fields of wheat and corn and felt for a moment like I was back in Iowa where I grew up.

The Écopole du Forez

Preparing for a trip can be nearly as enjoyable as taking as it.  This time, with lots of arrangments to make beforehand, that was particularly true.  How many days would I take to cover the 800 km?  How long would each day's ride be?  Were there certain towns where I wanted to stay?  Which chambres d'hôte seemed best placed and most attractive?

I didn't, though, plan what I'd be doing in each place.  I'd stay there at least two nights, giving me a full day to explore.  But I had no plans for that day, apart from possibly looking for something related to the river.  Invariably the chambres d'hôte offer multiple brochures describing local attractions.  Usually, traveling with Lynda, we already have plans and I ignore the brochures, except to stuff them in a drawer to make room on the desk for my computer.  This time, though, I thought they might offer something.  That's how, while I was in Feurs for the first two nights of my trip, I learned about the Écopole du Forez.

It took France a while to recover from World War II.  Eventually it did and from the mid-1950s through the 1970s, the so-called trentes glorieuses, the economy took off and grew steadily.  Especially after the destruction from the War, the growth meant construction -- roads, rail lines, buildings, homes.  And construction meant sand and gravel, much of which came from river beds.  Over time, the environmental effects of this became more and more evident.  In places with heavy extraction stream levels went down, in turn affecting fish populations and upsetting plant and animal habitats along the banks.  

In the mid-1980s, environmentalists were trying to stop extraction of sand and gravel from pits along a stretch of the Loire in the middle of the Forez Valley.  The mining was lowering the river bed, which, in turn, was affecting fish populations and upsetting plant and animal habitats along the banks.  In 1987, the Fédération Rhône-Alpes de Protection de la Nature (FRAPNA) managed to find the funds to buy one of the gravel pits covering about 27 acres.  That same year, three companies with contiguous pits decided to donate to FRAPNA an additional 370 acres.  The Écopole's history is silent on what may have been going on in the background to cause this.  Now, with responsibility for nearly 400 acres, FRAPNA turned to the European Union for funds to restore the pits and surrounding areas.  La Nef ("The Vessel"), a wood and glass visitors center recalling an inverted ship's hull.  The building sits on pilings several feet above ground, both to provide a vantage point and to protect against Loire floods.

They also found resources to build

 The center opened in 1993.  Twenty years later you need the old photos on display there to know what the area was like before.  The old pits have become a series of ponds bordering the west side of the Loire.  Grasses and reeds cover the banks and black alders and willows have grown up on the land nearby.  The restored habitat has brought fish to the ponds and lots of birds, including cormorants, grey herons, black kites, egrets, and several varieties of ducks.  The upstream Grangent and downstream Villeret Dams eliminated beavers from the Forez Valley.  But Écopole staff successfully reintroduced the animal several years ago.

On a daily basis the Écopole concentrates on environmental education.  It has ties to universities in Lyon and Saint-Étienne.  It works with schools in the area.  And it hosts a regular flow of tourist like me.  It is also trying to extend the écopole concept up and down the river.  This year, at the end of May, during the celebration of the Écopole's 20-year anniversary, supporters designated the center as the first component of what they're calling the "Transligérienne."  "Ligérien" (feminin, ligérienne) describes someone or something related to the Loire River.  The term derives from the Latin name for the river, the Liger.  Supporters of the Transligérienne idea hope to see a series of similar natural preserves created all along the 1,000 km of the river.  Eventually, too, they hope to link to the Via Rhôna, a hiking, cycling trail along the Rhone River.  The dream is a line of nature preserves from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean.

"Bonheur"

I took the pieces of my bicycle out of its travel case yesterday and put it back together.  I was staying with a friend in Paris and I'd found some shade in the courtyard of her apartment building; I was hurrying to be done before the temperatures went into the 90s.  (And here I'd thought I'd be escaping Washington D.C.'s heat when I got to Paris.)  At one point, I dropped a small screw.  I found it again right away, but it occured to me then how much this whole project depends on this seemingly fragile machine.  One piece missing or broken and all the planning is up in the air.

Maybe if I gave the bike a name it would feel more like part of the family and be on its best behavior.  But I've had it for nearly ten years without knowing it as anything other than "the Hampsten," so it's probably too late for that sort naming, personification thing.  In any case, as long as I don't lose critical pieces, the bike has always (knock on wood) been highly reliable.

So I'm off for a month or riding down the Loire River.  Last night, the apartment across the courtyard seemed to offer what I'm glad to take as an encouraging sign of what's ahead.

The Gerbier is free

Among the world's rivers, France's Loire must have one of the most clearly marked starting points.  This is le Gerbier de Jonc, a volcanic mound in the department of the Ardèche, where several springs emerge from its base, quickly join, and head off for the Atlantic some 600 miles away.

© Richard Mounts

Despite being rather remote, it's estimated that the site draws nearly a half million visitors a year, many of whom pay a euro or so and push through the turnstile to hike to the top for the impressive views.  

© Richard Mounts

© Richard Mounts

Not withstanding its status as a kind of national monument, le Gerbier and the surrounding land is privately-held.  But starting this summer, the admission charges will be dropped and access will be free.  This comes as the result of a 30-year agreement between the land owners and the department of the Ardèche.

I worry about too many people climbing over an already fragile ecology.  But apparently the department plans new protective measures, along with programs to highlight the unique characteristics of the setting.  I may have to go back.

Raising the river

More news from the Loire Valley.  As I noted back in January, I'll be having a bias in this direction over the next few months.  Two years ago, on my bicycle I followed the first 200 km of the Loire River, from the headwaters at Le Gerbier de Jonc along its path through the department of the Haute-Loire.  This year during the summer I'll be riding the remaining 800 km.  So I'm paying more attention to news about the river.

This last Sunday (March 24), the Nantes newspaper Ouest France, reported on a meeting of a group concerned about the dramatic drop in the level of the river.  Normally it's the other way around; people living along a river worry about the river being too high.  But over the last 30 years, measurements at Ancenis, a town midway between Angers and Nantes, have recorded a drop of six and a half feet (two meters) in the level of river.  Much of this resulted from projects like dredging and levee construction undertaken to permit ocean-going ships to come up river to Nantes.  To simplify what happened in the river, the water flow was constricted, its speed increased, and it has been cutting down into the river bed.  Not surprisingly, this channelization has had serious consequences for wetlands areas along the river.  Many have dried up with a resulting loss of habitats for fish, birds and plants.

The group meeting last weekend that drew Ouest France's attention was the Comité Loire de Demain (CLD) (Committee for Tomorrow's Loire).  According to paper, the CLD, formed in 2005, includes 400 individual members,, 34 private associations, and, remarkably, 24 local governments.  The group has been advocating measures to stop the continuing drop in the river's level and even to begin to bring it back up.  Lately, they've been focusing their efforts on the Plan Loire IV.  This will be the latest extension of the Plan Loire Grandeur Nature and will cover the period 2014-2020.  According to the article, the CLD has been quite please that the planning officials seemed ready to give a high priority to this issue in Plan Loire IV.  Still, the big issue appears to be how to maintain Nantes as a port and, at the same time, return the river to its pre-dredging, pre-levee state.

Reflections on the Loire

With the exception of several dams, the Loire is a beautiful river all the way from the headwaters to the Atlantic.  The central portion especially, with the chateaux, has been drawing tourists since the time of Henry James -- and probably before.  But the Loire is also a hydrological system and a series of natural habitats.  It's often referred to as perhaps the last wild river in Europe.  But it isn't.  The dams I just mentioned; but there are human influence on the river.  It provides, for example, cooling waters to more nuclear power plants than any other river in Europe.  And along some stretches it's channeled by levees dating back centuries.

A recent edition of La Nouvelle République, the principal newspaper of Tours, included short interviews with Bernard Valette and Roberto Epple, both important figures in efforts to protect the Loire, both speaking of the river's fragility in the face of human actions.  Valette founded l'Observatoire Loire in 1992.  L'Observatoire, based in Blois, is an environmental education association that, among other projects, provides educational materials to schools and offers boating excursions to learn about the river first hand.  Epple was a founder in 1989 of SOS Loire Vivante, one of a coalition of organizations that in the early 1990s successfully opposed construction of several dams on the Loire and its tributaries.

L'Observatoire Loire recently celebrated 20 years and the paper asked Valette to reflect on the condition of the river over this time.  He refered to a couple of on-going issues, like the spread of the silure and too many new developments in floodplain areas.  (The silure, an immense, ugly form of catfish native to Europe and Asia, can reach lengths of 8 feet or more and weights of nearly 250 pounds.  Silures are omnivores and appear to be threatening other species of fish.)  But mostly he stressed the still fragile character of the river and the need for people to understand it better.

Roberto Epple.  © Photo NR, Jérôme Dutac

Epple also notes the river's fragility, but is more specific in naming the threats.
Climate change, he says, has raised the river's average temperature by about 2.5 degrees centigrade (~4.5 degrees fahrenheit) with evident consequences for the river habitat.  Further, he says, dams prevent the river from carrying its normal charge of sediments and sand.  Over time he fears the river channel will deepen, the speed of the water will increase, and again, habitats will be undermined.
And he worries about over-commercialization along the river that could end up eliminating much of what currently attracts tourists.

To keep in mind the next time you're tempted to think of the timelessness of the Loire Valley.

Brioude's Maison du saumon

Until the 1960s roughly, Atlantic salmon used to be plentiful in the Loire and Allier rivers.  It's estimated that during the 19th century something like 100,000 of the fish returned to spawn in the upper reaches of these rivers.  A couple of years ago, I vacationed in that area.  While I was there I came across an interesting little aquatic study center that tells some of the story of this fish.  The Maison du saumon in Brioude displays old photographs from the 1950s of individual and commercial fishermen taking advantage of all those fish.  I remember a picture of a restaurant kitchen with a pile of the fish waiting for cutting and cooking.  But since the mid-1980s salmon fishing in these rivers has been banned.  There are just too few of the fish.  Dams at critical points along the rivers blocked access to spawning grounds, over-fishing and pollution did the rest.

About 20 years ago, an effort called the Plan Loire Grandeur Nature set about trying to bring the salmon back.  And the numbers from several counting stations along the rivers indicate the plan is slowly having an effect.  From a low count of about 100 the numbers have risen to the mid-500s, and in 2012 the counting station at Vichy recorded 717.

The little Maison du saumon has been doing its part, too.  Along with the historical materials, visitors see aquariums with live salmon, and other varieties of fish, mostly from the Allier.  And there are displays on the restoration efforts.

This year the Maison is celebrating 25 years and Brioude wants to mark the event by updating and expanding its activities.  At the end of January, the city council voted to provide 30,000€ to buy new equipment.  They added another 10,000 to 15,000€ to support a partnership with the salmon counting station downstream at Vichy.  And they included 10,000€ for a study on new approaches to museum programs.

The salmon need all the help they can get and it's good to see Brioude supporting the Maison and its work. 

Plan Loire Grandeur Nature

Groups along the Loire River are beginning to discuss the content of the next Plan Loire Grandeur Nature to begin in 2014.  La Nouvelle République, the primary newspaper for Tours and the central Loire Valley, reports briefly that the Région du Centre recently held a public forum on aspects of the Plan.  Over the next few months, there will be other, similar forums most likely organized by other governmental units up and down the river valley.  Participants normally include the major interested parties -- the national government; regional, departmental, and municipal governments; water users, including homeowners, businesses, and agriculture; and environmental associations.

I'm still trying to make sense of policy-making for the Loire River basin.  But so far it's my impression that, in a country known for centralized administration, this area may be particularly decentralized.  Many of the governmental units along the river have competing interests.  Nominally -- and maybe actually -- these are "coordinated" by the préfet coordonnateur du bassin Loire Bretagne who is also the préfet for the Région du Centre.  His offices are in Orléans. 

The first Plan was prepared in 1994 and was part of a settlement after a five-year-long conflict over proposals to construct four dams on the Loire and several tributaries.  Generally the Plan sought to balance development along the river with what was then a new commitment to protect the river's special ecosystem.  Specifically, the Plan introduced a commitment to protect against flooding by moving structures out of at-risk flood zones and limiting new development in these same zones.  It also began an on-going project to revive the Atlantic salmon population.

Initially, the government intended only one 10-year plan.  However, after six years it stepped back for an evaluation and decided to make it a permanent part of river basin management.  The third Plan initiated in 2007, runs through the end of this year.  Thus the new round of discussions. 

I expect to be biking along the Loire later this year in August so I'll be writing more about this.