Drought: Colmar wants to water its flower beds, despite the restrictions


The tourist town of Colmar, which enjoys a label “four flowers“, announced Friday August 5 to have requested an exemption from the prefecture of Haut-Rhin to be able to continue to water its flower beds, while the department is the subject of new measures to restrict the use of water.

Colmar has “heavily invested in ensuring its reputation as City 4 Flowers and Golden flower and thus maintain its tourist appeal“, argues the city in a press release posted on its site.

Its mayor, LR Éric Straumann, “subscribes to the desire to preserve water resources, but would like certain particularities of the City of Colmar to be taken into account and compromises found“, continues the municipality. On Wednesday, the prefect, Louis Laugier, announced in a press release that he had issued an imposing order to “new measures temporarily limiting certain uses of water“, after those taken on July 12, the situation having become in the meantime “critical in the Vosges valleys and in the south of the department“. Colmar is one of the municipalities concerned by these restrictions, according to the decree which, if it “does not prohibit the watering of trees, shrubs and potted trees“, prohibits on the other hand that “lawns, green spaces and public flower beds“, notes the town hall, which therefore stopped “watering grassy areas and green spaces“.

But so that theinvestments in labor and plants“granted by the city”are not a loss, and in order not to further weaken an economic sector already affected by the COVID crisis, (Éric Straumann) has submitted a request for an exemption to the Prefect in order to continue watering flower beds and planters“, indicates the town hall. Colmar is indeed rethinking “its green spaces for several years to adapt to the effects of climate change and successive droughts“, argues the city, anxious to find “a fair balance between vital needs and preservation of fauna and flora.

France has been facing a historic drought for weeks. Currently, “more than a hundred municipalitiesare deprived of drinking water“, said Friday the Minister of Ecological Transition Christophe Béchu.



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