France has two months to justify ‘environmental deterioration’ involved in the Sivens dam project.
The European commission has sent France a final notice to explain how it can reconcile EU environmental law with a proposed dam project that sparked riots, which claimed a protester’s life last month.
Rémi Fraisse, a 21-year-old student, died after being hit in the back by a grenade during police attempts to prevent a site occupation on 25 October.
The Sivens dam project in France’s Tarn region has received an estimated €2-3m (£1-2m) of taxpayer money from an EU fund worth €8.5m, although commission officials say they want France to clarify the exact amount.
France must also explain how the proposed dam can be reconciled with Article 4 of the water framework directive, which demands sustainable long-term management of water and preventing it from deteriorating.
“The French authorities seem to have authorised the project without a complete evaluation of all the effects that the amounts of water concerned could have on the environment,” Enrico Brivio, a commission spokesman, told the Guardian.
The project appeared to have been approved “despite the environmental deterioration of the bodies of water in question and the further deterioration that the project might involve,” Brivio said.
France now has two months to respond, although work on the dam has been suspended until the end of the year to allow negotiations between local green protesters and the socialist government on alternative ways of using the waterway.
“The contents of this European letter will permit the renewed project to meet the right criteria,” the French environment minister, Segolene Royal, said after a cabinet meeting in Paris.
More on: www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/nov/26/eu-takes-legal-action-against-controversial-french-dam
