Efficiency, sobriety, protection of the environment and health: municipal water management has proved its worth in Paris and in many other municipalities where this essential public good has been freed from the damaging logic of the market.
by Dan Lert, Deputy Mayor of the Blue Community / Blue City of Paris in charge of the ecological transition
Water is at the forefront of the climate crisis and the massive pollution of our environment. In France, successive droughts and rising temperatures are seriously threatening our access to this vital resource. By 2050, river flows could fall by up to 40%, while many groundwater levels are already at alarming levels. This resource scarcity is compounded by widespread contamination of the environment and resources by pesticides and insecticides. Scientists are warning us of the seriousness of this pollution, which is spreading with the guilty indifference of the industrialists who have been producing it for decades.
Faced with this alarming situation, one thing is clear: water management cannot be left to market forces alone. However, the water multinationals want to take advantage of this crisis to impose their costly technological solutions at the expense of an approach based on prevention and sobriety. All for the benefit of their shareholders. This financialisation of water and the race for “all-out technology” are taking place at the expense of a genuine policy to preserve water quality in the long term, without guaranteeing equitable access to this vital resource.
The obvious
We know this in Paris, where water distribution was contracted out to the private sector until 2010. This period was marked by chronic underinvestment and opaque management that favoured the profits of private operators. In 2010, Paris took back the management of its water by creating the public service Eau de Paris. This was an important political decision, based on the conviction that water should be managed as a public good rather than a commodity.
Remunicipalisation has allowed us to invest in the public service and to make water efficiency a key focus of our water policy, in particular by reducing leakage and modernising our drinking water treatment plants. While the large private groups are making some efforts to reduce water consumption, they have ensured that they are paid for water savings in the new delegation contracts, thereby trading on the need to reduce consumption in the face of climate change.
The choice of public management has also allowed us to develop ambitious initiatives to protect water resources. Around its water catchment areas, Eau de Paris, with the help of the Seine-Normandie water agency, is financing farmers to go organic and reduce pesticide use to the tune of €47 million over ten years. The result: water quality that is 100% compliant with health standards and a 77% reduction in the use of pesticides compared to conventional practices in the areas farmed by Eau de Paris partner farmers. In short, instead of systematically opting for treatments that cost billions of euros and have a high environmental impact, we have chosen to invest millions in prevention, reducing pollution at source to protect health and the environment.
Publicly managed water is water protected from the profit motive, where every euro collected is reinvested for the benefit of users and the preservation of the resource. Today, more than half of all French people drink water supplied by a public authority because, in the face of climate and health crises, public management is proving to be not only more efficient, but also cheaper, more environmentally friendly and more democratic. Yes, allowing public water management to flourish is our best weapon in the face of the climate and pollution crisis we are experiencing. It’s time for this obvious fact to be made clear across France.
