This summer, Saur’s teams are once again mobilised to guarantee a supply of drinking water for everyone. “Being a player in the water sector means first and foremost working with all the stakeholders: public authorities, industry and the general public to find solutions that guarantee access to water while preserving the resource. This is illustrated by the success of the operations carried out this summer. I’m thinking, for example, of the deployment of tanker trucks or the adaptation of pumping rates at our plants to preserve springs and watercourses in certain départements. Our Operations Managers and Regional Managers are working closely with the prefectures as part of the interministerial crisis unit set up by the government,” confirms Jean Laurent, Deputy Director of Business Expertise.”
Because commitment also means raising awareness, the Saur teams went out to meet the French people. The Water Festival, a travelling educational village organised in some twenty towns and cities across France, aroused the curiosity of several hundred visitors who were able to discover the water cycle and learn more about how to save this resource. According to Isabelle Jegouzo, Customer Relations Manager for Brittany, “Consuming water means first and foremost thinking about its scarcity. We have also worked with local authorities to communicate with our fellow citizens in water-stressed areas to inform them of the situation. Since the start of the summer period, more than 1,700,000 communications (emails, text messages) have been sent out across France.”
In terms of information, the Group is continuing to innovate with its public utility platform info-secheresse.fr. Launched by its subsidiary ImaGeau, this free platform aggregates and interprets all public data on meteorology, hydrology and hydrogeology, hydrology and hydrogeology. “Info-secheresse.fr has been designed to help anticipate situations of water stress in mainland France. It analyses data from 8,000 monitoring points and continuously compiles the main drought indicators. Droughts are set to become more frequent and longer-lasting, and the challenge of climate change means that we need to share information more widely in order to adopt sustainable practices for the management and use of water resources by users (local authorities, industry, farmers and the general public)”, explains Marjorie Bertrand, ImaGeau hydrogeological engineer in charge of business development for Eastern France.
A solution for every region. The summer of 2022 gave Saur the opportunity to demonstrate its expertise and responsiveness by deploying technical innovations tailored to local issues alongside the local players involved. In Morbihan, on the island of Groix, at the request of Lorient Agglomération, the Group, via its public works subsidiary CISE TP, set up an 80m3/h pumping system at sea to supply a new desalination unit to deal with the lack of fresh water on the island. Another innovation that has been in place for a long time within the Group is REUT. “This is not a new subject for Saur, as we have been using reclaimed water on the Ile de Ré for over 10 years. This water is used to irrigate potatoes, but also more generally to irrigate market gardening land and horse-riding clubs in the area,” confirms Christian Courpron, Area Manager – Ile de Ré.
In the face of such intense climatic episodes as the drought, Saur intends to pursue two objectives in the future: to rebalance interactions with water resources and to help territories achieve their water transition. We are all part of the solution, let’s give water back the place and value it deserves.