WATER SHORTAGES

RADIO TELEVISION SUISSE | 26 min

Postproduction Script

 

Switzerland is not used to being concerned about its water supply. With a quality that would make many countries in the world envious, drinking water is everywhere, even in places where it could easily be dispensed with.

But the time of carefree living may be coming to an end. Rising temperatures, prolonged periods of drought, violent storms and then a lack of water in the pastures...

Something is going wrong with the climate clock, threatening a resource that we always thought was inexhaustible...

0'47

WATER SHORTAGE, BEWARE!

0'51

A report by Jean-Daniel Bohnenblust

VO: Those who like to walk in the Jura know that they run the risk of coming back soaked by a rain shower. But rain is all that Yvan Durig, owner of the Les Brenets navigation company, hopes for. The lake is at its lowest. The receding water reveals the bed of the Doubs now apparent... and the boats of the small fleet have their hulls touching the bottom.

 

1'40

Yvan Durig, captain Navigation on the lake of Les Brenets

"This is the main pier, where we usually take passengers on board, and last week we had to move all the harbor installations over 200 meters. We can see that now we arrive at the bottom of the Doubs, the bed of the Doubs is apparent, and then we see the strata on the edges there, daily losses, we lose about 18 cm per day.

At the time of these images, the lake is 6 meters 80 below its normal level.

 

2'08

August 2019

Now this is what it looks like, in years when the region is generously sprinkled with rain.

The situation is changing, and that doesn't help Yvan Durig's business.

 

"It's the lack of rain, we have a lot of precipitation that is announced, the sky is threatening, it becomes black and all of a sudden, it dissipates, it takes other directions, that's the problem."

The sky sulks in this part of the country and to make matters worse, the water is lost in the porous Jura soil and escapes through cracks in the bottom of the lake. Without new rain, the boats will have to stay at the quay.

The departure is laborious. It is the last day of navigation since the landing stage. In the mind of the captain resurfaces a bad memory, the terribly dry summer of 2018.

 

3'03

Yvan Durig, captain Navigation on the lake of Les Brenets

"We had to stop on September 14, which affected us by about 10,000 passengers at that time.

Here we are three weeks earlier...

"We are three weeks earlier, yes.

 

VO: The Jura forest is also suffering from the drought. The hot summer has yellowed the meadows and in these conditions, it is very difficult to run a farm. On the heights of Les Brenets, Didier Girard is worried about his dairy cows because they are big drinkers.

 

4'01

Didier Girard, farmer

"I filled up this morning. There, I think it's one day a basin like that. In two days, yes, 1000 liters, two days.

"It depends, now we have a little bit cooler nights, we have dew, so at night they drink less but during the day they still like to drink.

What are the needs of a cow?

"So it's difficult to... it's difficult to know, you'd have to ask a vet exactly, it depends on the milk production, but I would say between 120 and more per cow per day. 120 liters a day, maybe even more."

Normally, these cows drink rainwater collected in tanks installed in the ground. But the tanks are empty. Didier Girard has to go down to the village to get water from the drinking water network of Les Brenets. A question of survival for his herd.

 

4'53

Didier Girard, farmer

"In recent years, we have had increasingly dry years, I come several times a year, we'll say, between two and three times, at about 80 cubic meters per time. We try to manage on our own because we have had water brought up by a transport company but, the cost per cubic meter is way too expensive."

And here we are talking about water... is it drinking water in fact, from the network?

"Yes, it's the water from the municipal network, so it's completely potable.

"It's extra work and extra costs. But, we can't tell the cows, listen, today there's nothing to drink, well, we need water, we'll get some.

VO: And to the purchase of water is added that of the food for the cows. This is also the price of the drought.

"What also poses a problem is the decrease in forage yields, for the crops, for the winter, because, well, it burns and then, um, we harvest very little. I made fodder up to eight weeks, normally it's six weeks, and then I should have made 55 bales, on a parcel that I made, I made 23. So all this is a loss of income.

Water is really becoming a precious commodity...

"That's it, exactly, yes.

VO: This tension around water seriously complicates the life of a man with a crucial role, the fountain attendant. In Les Brenets, Marc Pinaud is in charge of arbitrating access to the precious resource... for the animals and, above all, for the inhabitants.

 

The village has natural springs, but today they are no longer sufficient.

 

6'33

Marc Pinaud, fountain manager Commune des Brenets

"So here, the catchment system, in the strict sense of Brenets with the two Adeu springs. Downstream and upstream springs, plus the two boreholes below, and this spring is now dry, which is quite exceptional.

 

"So we still have the two lower boreholes that give 1500 liters per hour, which is not enough, unfortunately.

 

1500 liters, enough to fill six good bathtubs in one hour. Not enough for a town of 1000 inhabitants.

 

To meet the needs, Les Brenets has to get water from elsewhere. The additional water comes from Neuchâtel via a network through the mountains.

 

"It's true that in times of prolonged drought, we don't have unlimited resources, since the rock cover above is quite limited. So we're not at the bottom of the valley, we're already at mid-altitude, so after long periods without water, without rain, necessarily the resources decrease."

 

Managing water is a never-ending job. When there is a drought, we have to constantly check the state of the reserves, which are constantly decreasing.

 

"Since January 2020, so we're seeing the refills here, from February to March, with very small refills in June and July, then flat. So, uh, a drop in flows every day. So we can see the lack of resources, so very little rainwater, so the levels are dropping, the flows are dropping.

 

The flows are dropping and the farmers take turns at the village fountain.

 

"So there you came to take 7,000 liters... And then you're going to make another 7, 8 trips?"

"Yeah, I'm going up 50 meters or so"

"50 cubic meters today?"

"50 thousand liters today"

"Anyway, there's always a margin, he warns me every time and then I make sure that our tanks are full.

"And with 50,000 liters, how long can you last if it doesn't rain?

"Well, about three cubic meters per day".

"Well, have a good trip then... bye Alex".

"Bye"

 

Transporting water, a new task devolved to the farmers of Les Brenets.

As for the Doubs, it still flows a little in the middle of a lake that is half gone.

 

8'56

Marc Pinaud, fountain attendant Commune des Brenets

"Despite the lack of water, we still have to be able to supply it, as much for the population as for the farmers, or for fire fighting. But in any case uh... It is certain that it is a situation that is renewed, more and more frequently for this region, in any case."

 

Is it worrying for you?

"It's worrying in that the lack of water means that we have to buy water from other sources at a cost. And then especially problems for the environment for the navigation of course. And for the quality of the water in the river Doubs.

 

The weather does not leave any respite to the most astute observers of the sky.

At MeteoSwiss, the phenomenon affecting the Jura is taken very seriously.

 

9'41

Mikhaël Schwander, Meteoswiss meteorologist

"We can speak of a Mediterraneanization of the climate, that is to say that summers are becoming drier with less precipitation and winters are milder and wetter with rainfall that is a little more frequent, but this winter precipitation does not necessarily compensate for the lack of precipitation in summer in certain regions such as the Jura.

 

And to make matters worse, the significant dryness of the soils prevents the formation of thunderstorms, a real vicious circle.

 

"We already had a lack of humidity in the spring, but this summer, we know that the summer was less stormy than normal in France and often in the Jura, the storms come from the west, from the south-west, so if the storms do not develop in France or in the west of the Jura, there will be less precipitation in general throughout the Jura chain.

 

Today, with the warming, it is mainly the higher Alps that are getting the storms, while the Jura has to cope with the lack of rain.

 

On the other side of the Doubs, in France, the situation is even worse. Here, as in Switzerland, the wetlands have been drained to promote agriculture and milk production. Pumped in large quantities, the water, in a fragile equilibrium, has suddenly become scarce due to the recurrent lack of rain. Entire sections of the Doubs are dry and when there is a little water left, it is too hot for the fish to survive.

 

A little further on, the crisis has been declared in the Jura department. This is the most serious alert level for water restrictions. Here, the rules of use are extremely severe: strict schedules for irrigating fields, prohibition of watering private gardens ... water is reserved only for essential uses.

 

Because of the drought, the 200 inhabitants of the village of Lect have to be supplied by tanker trucks for their drinking water needs. This happens quite regularly, but the phenomenon has worsened. The spring of the village does not flow any more.

 

We are going to go, we are going to see where is the tank, I do not know if I will be dead 20 hopes that we will have enough water before refilling.

 

It is, it is quite low yes.

 

"Yes, yes, it's going down, it's going down fast. We're going to stay on the rhythm of water deliveries, minimum twice a week.

"Twice a week, yeah, that's the minimum, right."

"Okay, so uh..."

 

12'21

Dominique Retord, Mayor of Lect

"Fortunately, we're lucky to be in a town where there are two villages, one of which has no shortage of water. So the water that we bring here is the water of the village, which is a little bit lower and so we have to do it by truck. Today, given that the, the, the drought periods are getting longer every year, but we're going to plan anyway, now, it's becoming, it's becoming unavoidable, we have to plan a supply on this reserve, we have to do something, something, something, something, something, something stable and perennial.

 

Connecting the village to secure the drinking water of the inhabitants is the priority of the mayor of Lect. The droughts of recent years call for radical measures.

 

"It's been a good ten years where the village of Lect lacks water, we'll say a little in the summer, especially at first in August, then it was July, August and now, so we're on September and then and then and then was October what.

 

I imagine that it is always very important to promote community spirit, when you are in this situation perhaps?

 

"Ah, that's the whole problem, when you promote community, it's imperative that, that there are all the services and the first service that, well, that we owe to the population, well it's, it's, it's water.

 

In France, many regions are in crisis. The most affected regions are marked in red and must severely restrict their use of water.

Particularly concerned, the Indre in the center of the country, looks like an African savanna.

Here, the water tables are dropping. Deep drinking water remains accessible but agriculture suffers greatly because it depends on surface water which is constantly diminishing. 

 

In mid-September, Montgivray, in the south of the department, has not seen rain for more than 3 months.

 

14'37

Michel Blin, mayor of Montgivray

"It's becoming recurrent. It's something that unfortunately we have to get used to and when we have rain, we have very little of it.

For the time being, we have to put up with it. The mayor of a community, today, he doesn't have the possibility of being able to solve this problem which is, I would say, an international problem.

 

But is it that the concern that one day finally the tap will not flow anymore is gently emerging?

"Will not flow anymore? But we are already, we think about it a lot and we are also helped by, by the State in relation to different projects and it is also a, an awareness in the daily life of each consumer.

 

In addition to a stifling heat, Montgivray suffers a double punishment. Already in crisis, the commune has been declared a natural disaster. Under the effect of the lack of water in the water tables, the ground is inexorably collapsing. A part of this old lime kiln has even collapsed.

 

"We have more periods of winter snow it goes back far enough, it is simply a rain that is increasingly distant and this is what poses me today certain problems and in the files that I have here it is not there is not that the rural world, the agricultural world which is impacted it is also the private individual, the private individual in his pavilion, in his house of the grandmother who also undergoes these same effects of ground which moves and which cracks the facades, which lézarde the facades. " 

 

Here the clay soil reacts like a sponge, it swells when the water table fills with water and sinks in periods of prolonged drought. This back and forth movement has a serious impact on buildings. In the department, thousands of houses are damaged.

Near Châteauroux, Daniel Defougere is a helpless witness to the phenomenon.

 

16'41

Daniel Defougere

"So the damage at my house started in 2017, I was with my neighbor, after discussing when it cracked. And when I saw the all the damage that happened and all of a sudden, following a big crack, it still makes very, very funny, it makes a funny impression. And so that's where I saw the cracks that occurred in the wall, so the big crack that appeared there, that you see in the gable, that's the one that appeared first. And then the other cracks appeared.

And there are very, very big cracks that appear, that appear at night, but as if they were like gunshots, they systematically work on the frame and you can really hear that the frame is working, it's normal, since the house is also working on itself.

 

"So there, the first crack that appeared at the moment when the biggest work, the biggest damage was done. This crack, I put in expanding foam because we could see the day through it, I was obliged to plug it, to avoid the draughts to pass, to the cold which systematically entered for the heating in winter. And then, the window itself, it is blocked. I'm not going to force it, for fear of breaking something, the problem is that the window continues to work and the corals will eventually give out, it's inevitable.

 

"I will have a few tens of thousands of euros to leave most certainly because I do not think that the insurance take care of everything at 100%, something that would surprise me, it would be too good."

 

And all this because of the drought?

"All this produced because of the drought that unfortunately made work and the field. But that, the vagaries of time, we can not go against, we are forced to accept them, we have no choice, but it hurts anyway what it happens especially after 32 years of living in the house, never a single problem and then after three years, at the beginning of my, the first day of my retirement, that's where it started. Hello my retirement."

 

The recognition of the natural disaster is a vital decision for homeowners who can expect to be compensated by the state and insurance.

 

In Indre et Loire, further north, the situation is even more complicated. The houses open like flowers but here, the State has not recognized the problem.

 

"The opening was more important, and in fact, there it seems that it moves a little less on this side.

 

Distraught Brigitte Simon sought help from an association that supports drought victims.

 

"It grows, in fact it looks like..."

"Plus it's brick underneath right?"

"Yes"

"That's typical drought, for sure"

 

Today, she is condemned to witness the damage without being able to act.

 

" As it is there you see the day through? "

" Ah yes "

 

19'22

Brigitte Simon

"They have found big changes in relation to 2019, we are only in 2020, so it is still very, very frightening, so I say to myself, at some point, I am not going to die under the house, that's clear, because I am still afraid that it will collapse. So they only tell me no, but I'm sincerely afraid of it and when I see cracks, like you have here on the gable, I say to myself that it's not reassuring at all for me, sincerely.

 

"Already like this, because your house is leaving..."

"Is it leaving like that?"

"It's going like this"

 

Do you see many houses like that?

19'54

Hugues Brier, president of the Indre et Loire drought victims' association

"Ah, do I see many? It's... It's enormous, because we, at the level of the association in Indre-et-Loire, have 800, roughly 875 members. So come on, we can say that there are 700 houses that are affected in the year 2019. So it's still important."

 

"The frame it tends to do that "

"Well yes"

"If it does that on that side, it does that"

" Yes "

" So this "

" Here, okay "

" Got it? There you go. After that, we'll have to go through all this again. If the gentlemen from the insurance companies want to pay you... and if there is a by-law. If there's a bylaw, that's good, if there's no bylaw, well, we're done.

 

State decree, insurance expertise, decisive steps opening a right to

right to compensation.

 

Hugues Brier, president of the Indre et Loire drought victims' association

"We explain to them what to do and what not to do, we help them for the expertise, we come to see them before, to tell them if their house is due to the drought and so on. And we try to help them as much as possible. Because in the lote, there are people who are old, who are completely lost too, so we help them, that's the main, that's the main goal of the association."

 

21'04

Brigitte Simon

"I don't have the financial means to deal with all this work that is, that adds up because it adds up, eh, you have to say what it is so today, I don't know I, I'm waiting for news.

 

With a little fear of losing everything?

"Oh yes, yes, well that's for sure. Well, anyway, that's the risk. The risk is everything that is... My property today has a zero value. My property today has a zero value. I can't sell it as it is, so, it's a zero value and if it falls on the ground, in addition, yes, effectively, it's for me, it's a big problem."

 

21'48

South of France, 2019

And it is a paradox, in other regions, the drought aggravates the damage caused by the rare thunderstorms whose violence increases because of warming. Too dry, the soils are unable to absorb the abnormal amounts of rainfall that runoff and cause uncontrollable devastation ... as here in southern France.

 

But in the end, as water becomes scarcer, it becomes more and more valuable. So much so that the most exposed countries reuse their wastewater for irrigation, or even for human consumption.

 

A socially taboo subject that does not surprise Sébastien Apothéloz, head of the Lausanne water department.

 

22'40

Sébastien Apothéloz, head of the Lausanne water department

"So the reuse of wastewater is possible. We have the technological means today to take wastewater, purify it and then continue the treatment to make it potable. On the other hand, it is an expensive treatment and it is really justified where there is a lack of water. I think that in some places, it will be an unavoidable solution to reuse wastewater for irrigation, or even for drinking water.

 

Switzerland is not there yet, but it is increasingly concerned about the quality of its drinking water, 80% of which comes from underground.

For treatment in wastewater treatment plants, the law requires since 2016, to filter micropollutants before releasing the water into nature. The WWTPs must all adapt to the new standards.

 

"I think we need to be more efficient and, above all, we need to preserve resources better. Today, we see that the groundwater resources that we thought were well protected, with protection zones, are in reality very vulnerable. And then when we have, in a commune, only one resource and that it is contaminated, even if it is in tiny quantities by a micro-pollutant, that poses nevertheless big problems. And, we may have lived through a period of carelessness, when we started to build beautiful plants that treat water, beautiful treatment plants, we said to ourselves that all the problems were solved even with a demographic growth, we will manage to have drinking water in unlimited quantity and to treat wastewater to preserve the natural environment. This period, I think we are a bit at the end.

 

Les Brenets, two weeks after our first passage. What Captain Yvan Durig feared has happened. The lake has dropped again. 9 meters 10 below its normal level, it has almost disappeared. The boats are lying on the bottom.

 

24'34

Yvan Durig, captain Navigation on the lake of Les Brenets

"It's sad to see them inactive, that's not the point, we're here to work during this summer period, and now we realize that we'll have to stop everything within a few weeks.

 

"In addition we had the covid, so it impacted us the beginning of the season huh.

This year, it's painful "

 

And how long do you think your boats will be stuck there?

"If we have, a little bit, a similarity with 2018 I think until December."

 

So the season is almost over for you?

"Ah yes yes it is sure that there, we will still make these 15 days and then ... we will certainly have to stop our activities."

 

Changing rainfall patterns, rising temperatures, extreme events... in the near future, we'll probably have to reprioritize our water use.

Capture it more efficiently, help it stay in the soil, restore wetlands.

Today, even Switzerland, Europe's water tower, realizes that water is a precious commodity.

 

25'45

Jean-Daniel Bohnenblust

Pascal Gauss

Emilie Spierer

Corinne Dubuis

 

Graphic design:

Thiago Costa Guimil

Sound illustration :

Fredéric Demilliac

Edgar Biondina