Visit the mask manufacturing plant located on the Arcachon Basin - 20 Minutes

The National Council for the Protection of Nature has issued an unfavorable opinion to a vast ten-year project to rehabilitate the tip of Cap Ferret, the peninsula which closes the Arcachon basin and inexorably suffers the erosion of the coastline.

This sandy spire where many celebrities own second homes, is eroding four to five meters per year, according to the Observatory of the Aquitaine Coast. Assuring that, if nothing is done, 12 apartments, three commercial premises and six individual houses will be threatened by water by 2045, the Inter-communal Syndicate of the Arcachon Basin (Siba) has put in place a plan which provides to draw in ten years more than a million m3 of sand from the sea, on a nearby bank, to consolidate the coast line.

"Underestimated" the impacts "especially for the marine environment"

In an advisory opinion delivered on May 4, and revealed Wednesday by the daily newspaper Sud Ouest , the Council however asks Siba to review its copy. Recalling first that the national policy on the erosion of the coastline is to adapt and avoid "systematic defense against the sea", the Council criticizes this plan for having "underestimated" its impacts , "In particular for the marine environment", citing the case of eelgrass, aquatic plants, or "hermel reefs", marine worms.

The Council, attached to the Ministry of Ecology, also notes that the area contains "a large deposit of clams and oyster farms each generating high income" and plays "a nursery role" for many species, including eels , sole, bar, etc. For the Council, it is also necessary to better study the impact of noise during the works, the envisaged use of terrestrial sand in an emergency and the hydrodynamic consequences for sea currents.

The erosion of the tip of Cap Ferret is linked both to winds and swell on the ocean side and to the tide and currents on the basin side. The Siba wants to deposit 300,000 m3 the first year and then redeposit some 150,000 m3 every two years in sand taken from the Bernet bench, on the other side of the Basin. The union has already carried out a similar action on the other side of the basin, in Pyla-sur-Mer. For his part, the businessman Benoît Bartherotte has been tirelessly backfilling his property, installed at the end of the point, by dumping tons of rock.

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