Hoses at dawn

Image by Axel Bührmann via Flickr

Some years ago, I was working in the garden down by the river when a kayak containing two young Frenchmen appeared.

I told them, politely, that this stretch of water was private property, to which they responded by telling me that it was not and that we English might think we owned the place, but we had to obey the law like anyone else.

There is only one thing to do with brash young ignoramusses like that...and it is not to show them your deeds.

I sent the dog after them.

They were laughing and jeering as they paddled deliberately among the waterfowl and their chicks, pointing at the dog running along the bank.
When the dog plunged into the water, they were still laughing and jeering, but changed their tune rapidly as he clambered aboard the kayak. Lashing out at him with paddles was a disastrous failure....it served only to annoy him....so the only other option was ignominious flight.
How French.

I called the dog off once they had clearly got the message and he came swimming back, job well done, to give me a free shower.
How canine.

From a point of safety, well down the bank, one of the yobs shouted that I would be sorry.
He would denounce me.
How French.

What would be the object of the denunciation? It might surprise you.
It would not be for setting the dog on them, but for pumping water from the river to water my garden.

We were in a period of drought and a hosepipe ban had been imposed. Car washes had been shut down, and we were allowed only to water the veg garden. Whatever the source of water.
Rural France was accordingly illuminated at night by men with torches tripping over their hosepipes in the shrubbery and flicking the torch off  if a car's headlights approached. Seen from altitude, it must have looked like a host of glow worms spread over the Hexagon.

Now, despite the fact that, every day, my neighbour tows a vast cistern down the the river with his tractor and fills it up, it is forbidden to draw water from the river without a permit.
My neighbour does not have a permit, but he used to be a deputy maire, which seems to allow him to do anything he likes short of being caught in bed with Mme. Sarkozy.
I have a pump on the river bank and a net of hoses running all over the garden...all of which uses considerably less than his cistern, and I have no qualms whatsoever about using river water, whether there is a hosepipe ban or not.

When I take the road into town and see jets of water irrigating crops that are totally unsuited to the soil and climate of the area, I am blowed if I'll let my garden dry up when the water is flowing past it on its' way to the sea.
Further, when the river is down, the local sewage station will not be flushed out, so the water will be considerably cleaner and my shrubs on the banks will not be adorned with second hand sanitary towels.

Still, that was some time ago and in the intervening period there has not been much rainfall. People are taking to water conservation, and huge green plastic water butts abound.

In consequence, people are using much less water - water supplied by the water boards, that is...water you pay for.

Since as part of your water bill, you pay towards the treatment of waste water, when the water use falls, so does the amount paid for waste water treatment and the water boards are getting a little anxious.
Their solution?  Charge a fixed rather than variable amount for waste water treatment.

That might sound reasonable, although people who have been trying to economise on water feel that it is a poor reward for their efforts at conservation of a precious resource, but what about the people who have to pay this when they are not on the mains and have no direct benefit from the money sent on treatment plants?

They - we - aren't very happy.

The rows with the water board are still going on round here. There was a meeting at which the water board boss agreed  to seek dialogue with the disgruntled users who were manifesting their displeasure by  being out when the inspectors of septic tanks called, as I have mentioned before - here.

The disgruntled users rapidly discovered that what he meant by dialogue was charging not 85 euros, but 170 euros when his inspectors could not gain access to the property.

It will take a great deal to gruntle them again.

They are hiring lawyers and, just  looking at some of the jurisprudence, the water board might be in for a shock.
Well, it would be if the French legal system worked sensibly, but it doesn't.
Each region has its' own jurisprudence, so you can be right in the Pays de Loire and wrong in Alsace, and this region hasn't yet had a case.

Knowing this area, with the still not defunct kangaroo court,  here and here, you might think that the outcome of the case would depend on how many local bigwigs were on a septic tank.
Not at all....the water board's inspectors will take their word for it that their installations are within the norms, so even that bulwark of liberty will fail.

Did the yob denounce me?
Yes, of course he did.
I had a gendarme at the gate a couple of days later, who asked if he could come and inspect my watering system.
I said he could, if he didn't mind the dog going too.
The dog, beside me, was manifesting his dislike of uniforms.
The gendarme decided just to make me aware of the prohibition.
I thanked him politely and went back to watering the garden.
From the river.

And the answer is a septic tank

Image via Wikipedia

When puzzled, ask the postlady.

I have been turning over in mind why Bernard should give me the tip to lock up my poultry....he isn't a friend, after all and is hardly public spirited. Even when his tractor exhaust set fire to his hay barn he didn't alert the fire brigade until he was sure that the fire had taken hold, by which time his neighbour, the duckstealer, was getting distinctly worried about his stash of illicit animal feed in the barn on the border of the properties.

The oracle, inspired by a coffee rather than bay leaves, has spoken. Bernard is worried about his sewage.

I have mentioned the current sewage wars in earlier posts, but up to now I haven't seen the inspectors from the water board as there are only two of them and they have to cover about forty communes. I'd had the sneaking hope that they, like everyone else, had been unable to find us up in this little hamlet, but no...they're just taking a long time to get round. They have been spotted in St. Ragondin, whence rumour has it that one man with no sewage treatment system whatsoever has been told...and certificated...that his sewage disposal system is within the norms...well, I suppose it is if the norms are those which prevailed in the middle ages....while two others have been told that they don't have a system at all in spite of being able to provide bills from the night cart man to show that they have.


Bernard has complicated arrangements for his ducks and goats, involving tanks and goodness only knows what, and spreads the results on his fields on hot days in summer, conveniently forgetting his obligation to plough it in within twenty four hours. What Bernard does not have is any sort of arrangement for his domestic sewage. Bernard is now apparently calculating whether or not he can bribe the inspectors to ignore him completely, or, having recently acquired a powerful digger with yet another loan from the ever ready Credit Agricole, whether he should install a septic tank. With another loan from the ever ready Credit Agricole.


Both options cost money. The first option is probably the one he will try first, depending on his relationship with the families of the inspectors - local men both - as the matter, once certificated, will never raise its' head again. He is unlikely to sell the farm where his house is situated, so no one will ever know that the system is non existent.


However, with ever more stringent European Union rules on water quality, how can he guarantee that the water board won't be back in a few years' time...perhaps with different inspectors? Might it not be best to bite the bullet and dig the hole?


If the latter, then he has a major problem. Thanks to the weird way French landholdings get divided up, while Bernard has a lot of land, he doesn't have much around the house itself, and the septic tank...to be in the norms...requires distance he does not possess. He has already consulted the duckstealer about putting it on his land, but the duckstealer is having none of it. He doesn't want something on his land which gives Bernard the right to come and inspect and repair it and he doesn't want the clear water from it either. The duckstealer is notoriously coy about having anyone whatsoever on his land and he's not making an exception for Bernard.


Bernard, thwarted, has now bethought him of me. I own a triangle of land between Bernard's house and the lane, which would be very convenient for the installation of a septic tank. According to the postlady, who has been sounded out by Bernard, he is thinking that I don't do anything with it...true...and that I won't mind him installing his septic tank there...false.

If Bernard wants to install his septic tank there, he can buy the land. And he needn't think he's getting it at a rock bottom price either. He can apply for another loan from Credit Agricole.

Dirty water wars

Image by docman via Flickr

It's been a funny year again...the river didn't drop as low as a few years ago when I could cross almost dryshod, but it was possible to cut up and remove a lot of the dead trees brought down over the last winter which were blocking the river bed. Some readers may recall that there was a European Union grant to do just this, but, having paid for the 'study' and for the 'democratic participation', there wasn't much money left to do the work,so, as usual, we end up doing it ourselves.

With 2015 and an EU deadline on clean water coming up, there is a lot of activity about the great clean up, and a great deal of disgruntlement as well.

Let's revisit sewage wars. Local water authorities have taken over responsibility for the disposal of waste in a seemly manner, but problems have arisen about what to do about houses and installations which are miles from anywhere. We have all been paying a contribution on our water bills towards installing sewage stations, from which we have no benefit whatsoever, and the water board's proposal to inspect our individual disposal systems - at a price - and decide whether we are within the ever changing 'norms' are not going down too well. Quite apart from the time it is taking. Prospective purchasers are very wary of buying a house in a commune that has not been inspected in case they end up with a bill for putting the septic tank in order, while rumours - via the postlady's colleague - from a neighbouring commune that has been inspected indicate that French beaurocracy is excelling itself yet again. Two residents have been told that they do not have installations at all, even though they can lift the lids and point to the very real existence of same, so are slated to put in new septic tanks at vast expense, not to speak of the delays in getting the artisan francais to get off his backside and do the work before the deadline expires. What happens if they miss the deadline? Fines, that's what...at least so the postlady's colleague says. Others, notably one whose entire waste runs into a ditch on the approaches to St. Ragondin, are declared to be in the 'norms' when everyone knows that they are not, and the lack of confidence in the whole operation is so palpable that an association is to be formed, to haul the water board chief down to explain himself.
The majority view is that the water board took on responsibility for sorting out the sewage, the water board has been taking our money to build sewage plants and it's down to the water board to sort things out for the rest of us without further charge. There wouldn't be so much opposition normally - the rural French are pretty spineless, after all - but times are hard, the taxe fonciere has just come in to startled intakes of breath, and the Green Tax is about to strike.
An association in another canton has just had the pleasure of interviewing the water board chief, and by the reports in the local rag it was an exciting evening. This being France, I am not convinced we will get anywhere, but it will be fun to have an evening of beaurocrat baiting.

Then we turn back to the rivers. We used to have a prefet - Paris's man in the department to see what local government is up to and tell it to stop it - who was quite clued up on the nature of rivers. He felt that they should have water in them and was quite strict about imposing bans on irrigation by farmers. The regional prefet - Paris's man in the region to etc. - sees rivers differently. He sees them as existing even when they don't have water in them and has been overturning the departmental prefet's bans. He has now managed to overturn the departmental prefet himself, who has departed for some cupboard in Limoges. The regional prefet has been explaining that the problem is one of drought, not competition for use, that next year will probably be wetter and that the problem will thus go away of its' own accord without the need to upset the farmers. One thing is for sure, a regional prefet with a farmers' revolt on his hands will soon also be in a cupboard in Limoges.

Meantime, there is a scheme to clean up the rivers without upsetting farmers. Most of the existing weirs are slated to be destroyed, thus giving much longer stretches to enable water to clean itself. At least, that is what the river technician said when he came round. We shall hear more at the public meeting - and a great deal as well from the outraged fishing lobby. No very enviable position for a French beaurocrat, caught between farmers and fishermen, so that's another evening of bloodsport.

And people ask what we find to do in the countryside in winter......

Sarkozy's septic tank

Image via Wikipedia

French sewage disposal is a subject which only rarely surfaces....I think this may be an inappropriate word but no other comes to mind.....in polite conversation, but M. le President has done it again. Sewage is uppermost...oh dear.....in our minds after recent revelations of Presidential intervention in the disposal of his in-laws' waste on the French Riviera.
It appears that his in-laws live in an area where no collective waste disposal system...sewage works to the vulgar among us...exists. They appear to be thus on a par with most of rural France.
They would, it seems, like to have a sewage works but the neighbours won't agree to cough up the necessary contribution. Enter Sarkozy. At a meeting in the presence of the local Prefet -Paris' man in the local departments - and the man himself it was promised that the State would pay for the works. In-laws happy. Neighbours, on looking into the details of the scheme, not happy. Further meeting with the Prefet, but not with Sarkozy, who is out making the most of his old jet before the new one is delivered. Result, no sewage works and neighbours happy.
Return of Sarkozy. One wonders if his in-laws were able to call him up on the plane's communication system with which he is so unhappy or whether they had to wait in line with government ministers and suchlike canaille, but no matter. He is informed of the about face.
The Prefet has just been removed from his post without being appointed to another. Such is the importance of waste disposal to President Sarkozy.

We could do with his intervention out here in the sticks. While there are some individualists like the guy up the road whose waste runs straight into the ditch beside the road, most people have septic tanks of varying vintage and efficiency which occasionally need emptying if something goes drastically wrong. Mine backed up spectacularly once, and the night cart operators later presented me with a set of false teeth which, I can only imagine, had been deposited in the loo by an over enthusiastic reveller and had then worked their way in a fashion I would rather not contemplate into the outlet pipe. Try though I might I cannot fit those teeth to a face.....

However, in an attempt to conform to European Union water standards, local authorities are trying to clean up the system, so that only clean water percolates into the soil. To this end, they have usually delegated their powers to the regional water boards who are sending out inspectors to see what is happening and telling people to stop it. Gives a whole new light on water boarding.

A man will appear and will pour blue and red phials down your sink and loo. He will then go outside and try to trace red and blue colours where you tell him that the outlet pipe is...or at least, that is what those who have suffered this visitation tell me. I am still waiting as our water board has two men trying to examine all the septic tanks in over fifty communes. He will ask you how many bedrooms you have, how often they are occupied - what happens in rural brothels, I ask myself - and tells you whether your system is in the norms, if not, what you have to do to it and how long you have to do it and if it is, how often you should empty it. For this visit you are charged eighty euros.

This charge has raised hackles. Out here in the sticks, we pay water rates with a contribution to collective sewage disposal which does not benefit us as we have no access to it. Now the water boards are charging us to inspect our systems while being unable to offer us the services for which we are already paying. Several communes have started to protest and they are beginning to gather together to refuse payment.

Sewage wars. You read it here first.