“Hello, this is the water board!” » It’s 10 hours, the teenager who opened the door does not seem to understand what is happening. “You have consumed more than 1,500 liters per day, but we are in a drought and limited to 150 liters per person. I will therefore have to reduce your flow rate at the meter”, explains the technician. The youngster is on vacation in Seillans, in the Var, with his parents. They came from Belgium to take advantage of this superb stone villa with rounded balconies. In the garden, a turquoise blue swimming pool sparkles.
At three, the family should not have exceeded 450 liters per day: since the source of Baou-Roux and the groundwater which usually feed Seillans have dried up, part of the village had to restrict its consumption from the start. may. For the more spared neighborhoods, the limitation was decided at the end of July, to a maximum of 200 liters per person and per day. Throughout the region, town halls are implementing increasingly coercive measures. Some even distribute bottles, for lack of tap water. With his tanker truck, a former truck driver from 77 years old takes six times a day the zigzag roads of the hill in order to supply the reserve of the commune.
“Only a balanced sharing of the resource will make it possible to postpone or even avoid cuts. » René Ugo, Mayor of Seillans
To try “to put off the worst”, that is to say the total cut, the agents of the “governed” of the Pays de Fayence (community of municipalities of which Seillans is a part) are desperately trying to enforce the municipal decree. The problem is that “for 90% of people who pay attention, there are 10% who think they are allowed everything”, storm René Ugo, the mayor of Seillans and president of the community of communes. “Only a balanced sharing of the resource will make it possible to shift or even avoid cuts”, reminds the chosen one. “Sense of effort”, “sharing”… He keeps hammering those words. In the garrigue, villas sometimes pump several tens of thousands of liters per day. “People come on vacation and think it’s all inclusive: since they have money, then they can drink all the water they want. But the water, there is no more. »
“They will only have to drink their tickets”, plague an employee of the management. In brand new premises, the water service monitors the residents’ weekly consumption. On an Excel document, at each counter, a line: name, address, number of occupants, including dogs and cats. And, of course, the amount of liters used. If the limit is exceeded, the box is displayed in red. In this case, after a reminder of usage, the technicians move to “pick” the counter: by placing a piece of plastic the size of a shopping cart token, pierced with a 2 mm hole, they reduce six times the flow.
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