A fact-finding mission from the Strasbourg Eurometropolis called for greater involvement of local authorities in the conduct of geothermal projects, after a series of significant earthquakes that shook the city in 2019 and 2020, in a report published on Friday.

This information and assessment mission (MIE), bringing together elected officials from the Strasbourg metropolis and German municipalities, scientists, associations and citizens, lamented that geothermal activities remain a "prerogative of the State" not "sufficiently involving communities and citizens".

"The mining code is no longer suitable for projects of this nature: it must evolve so that the inhabitants, elected officials, are involved and can express themselves on the methods of exploiting the subsoils" and the risks associates, believes Marc Hoffsess, deputy to the ecological mayor of Strasbourg and president of the MIE.

The report stresses that most mayors “had the feeling of having been confronted with a fait accompli”, while associations evoke an “informational desert” in the face of the deep geothermal project carried out until December 2020 in the north of France. he Strasbourg area.

This project had caused a series of more or less intense earthquakes, one of which, magnitude 3.5, led to the permanent cessation of work.

Communes never solicited

The authors of the report also deplore the fact that the scope of public inquiries is limited to “locations of the projects concerned” and is not extended to all the territories exposed to risks. "We are struck to see that certain municipalities have discovered deep geothermal energy during earthquakes, but had never been requested" before, explains Marc Hoffsess, calling for "much more open" public inquiries.

The report also pointed to the "lack of consideration of the fears expressed" within the Eurometropolis of Strasbourg, which brings together the Alsatian capital and some thirty neighboring municipalities, the Eurometropolis having made geothermal energy a major element of its strategy. energy transition.

The Prefecture of Bas-Rhin, for its part, has set up a committee of experts responsible for investigating these earthquakes in order to decide the future of the three other geothermal projects underway in the department, which are currently suspended.

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