Drinking water in France

In France, the distribution of drinkable Eau is a competence reserved for the communes or their groupings under the terms of the Loi on the water of January 3rd, 1992. To be able to be described as drinkable and to be distributed to the population, water must satisfy the regulations of various decrees which fix, for a long list of parameters, the values not to be exceeded. That of December 20th, 2001 starting from December 25th, 2003 brings back from 50 to 25 µg/l the maximum content of Plomb. According to IFEN, in 2004 water was more expensive in the littoral areas of the north and the west of France, and French spent on average 177 euros per anybody and per annum in water invoice, for a consumption domesticates average 165 liters per capita and day and average costs of 3€/m3, but with strong variations according to the communes and the families (one consumed on average twice more water in Provence-Alp-Coast of Azure than in Nord/Pas-de-Calais Area Région, and more still in the island of the Meeting).

The management of the service of drinking water

Contrary at other public services, the management of the water centralized forever in France. The Révolution of 1789 entrusted to the common the responsibility for the drinkable water provision. They always have this competence, which can be exerted at the inter-commune level .

Consequently, the price strongly varies from one area to another, according to the basin, of the management style or the size of the commune. There is no general system of Péréquation to compensate for the cost differences at the national level.

Thus, the management of the service of drinking water can be directly assured by the community (management, Régie interested) or delegated to a privately held company (Affermage, concession). According to the report/ratio of the deputy Yves Tavernier on management and the financing and the management of water, the price of water was higher of approximately 13% in the communes which use delegated services, even definitely more in the communes of small size.

According to the Law on the water of January 3rd, 1992, the price invoiced with the user must include/understand two parts (“tariffing binomial”):

  • an amount calculated according to the volume consumed by the subscriber
  • a part fixes corresponding to the fixed charges of the service and the mode of connection.

Thus, the expenses engaged by the community are covered by a surtax perceived via the water invoice. This one must obligatorily reveal distinctly the various terms which compose it:

  • drinking water
    • the costs operating of the service (if there exists a délégataire of public service, this part is intended to him),
    • the surtax which covers the capital costs,
    • the taxes with the profit of the public agencies (whose tax of taking away of the Agence of water),
  • Assainissement
    • the costs operating of the service (if there exists a délégataire of public service, this part is intended to him),
    • the royalty which covers the capital costs,
    • the taxes with the profit of public agencies (of which the tax of pollution of the Agency of water),
  • VAT of 5,5%.

In Paris region, in 2005, approximately 43% of the water invoice correspond to the distribution, 31% with the cleansing and 26% with various taxes and royalties.

According to DGCCRF, on 29,3 million residences in 2001:

  • 22,9 million is connected to a network of collective cleansing connected to a purification plant.
  • 5 million residences ensures their cleansing with autonomous equipment. 14.000 communes, for the majority of the villages in which the habitat is scattered, did not install any network of collective cleansing.
  • 1,4 million residences directly pours their effluents in nature, without any treatment. Either they are connected to a collective network not equipped with a purification plant, or they are insulated and do not have a equipment of autonomous cleansing. They are in particular dwellings located in zones at the broken relief.

16.100 public purification plants treated 5,6 km of effluents in 2001. They produced nearly a million tons of mud, of which more half is used by agriculture.

In 2002, 40% of the expenditure of environment of the communes and their regroupings, is 8 billion euros, were devoted to management, the distribution and assainissment of water. But, according to the ministry for environnment, that remains insufficient; however, the drains are overall in good state, and with 20%, the leakage rate is one of the best performances in the world, and far in front of the the United States where it borders the 50%.

According to a European study l'" efficacité" French networks would be about 26%, to compare with 7% in Germany, 19% in Angletterre Wales and 29% in Italy

Industrial pollution

These last years of the serious incidents of industrial pollution showed that the risk was relatively badly controlled in France; in several cases, as in the business of the Synthron factory (close to Turns), the investigations show that the investments on the infrastructures of safety and controls of the services of the State (DRIRE) are made. A reflection is thus in hand in order to harden the regulation, more quickly to integrate the new scientific data and for better legislating on the rejections of the certain most polluting liberal professions like steam pressings, the dentists… who currently reject their waste water towards the public networks, when they exist, whereas they should use specific solutions of treatment.

Agricultural pollution

France is the most important consumer of Herbicide S, and more generally of plant health products, in Europe with annually 95.000 tons of widespread products each year, but it is in the average for consumption per hectare as the table shows it hereafter (Source UIPP 2001, extracted from a report/ratio of the Senate):

Consumption of plant health active substances in the countries of the European Union

(in kg/ha of agricultural surface)

The tendency is with the signficant reduction of the amounts used. According to UIPP, the average amounts were reduced of a factor 10 between 1950 and 2000 and should be still divided by 10 in the ten years to come.

That made nevertheless as many residues which, after infiltration in the ground, find in the Ground water, which causes to make more complex and more expensive the operations become necessary to return the Drinking water before delivering it to the Consommation.

In 2003, the European commission again condemned France for the bad condition of the aquiferous resources in Brittany, particularly polluted by spreadings of Lisier of pig and by the Engrais employed by the farmers, but:

  • the farmers take part only for 1% of the royalties in the taxes which feed the budgets of the agencies of water, whereas the Industrie takes part in it for 14%, and that the 85% remainders are thus the responsibility of the private individuals.
  • According to the ministry for Agriculture, they receive seven times on the whole more assistances with depollution than they do not pay a royalty, but according to Suez Environnement: “ It is normal that the farmers pay less than the users for water, since the royalties do not remunerate the same service. The consumer pays for pumping, the potabilisation, the distribution, and the treatment of waste water. The farmer pays a royalty on the taking away which it carries out ”.

In spite of the power of their lobbies, the farmers could prevent only one measurement among most constraining of the common Agricultural policy, can be adopted; that which conditions the payment of the assistances to the respect of 19 directives of which:

  • that which limits, the use of the Nitrate to 170 kg per hectare.

The farmers are not the only concerned ones, bus of the considerable quantities of pesticides are used by the private individuals in their Jardin S, by the services of the green areas of the local government agencies, and by the managers of grid systems (highways, RF)

Micropollutions

There exist as less known aquiferous pollution, but as much generated by our activities as by our lifestyle, for example:

  • the Contraceptive S human (pill) evacuees in waste water, often pass the barriers of the Assainissement and are found in the flesh of the Poisson S where one can note modifications endocriniennes.

Agencies of water

First agencies of water one created in 1964. They are often quoted for the lack of transparency of their budgets (1,5 billion euros/an), and on the relevance of the distributed assistances.

The ways of calculating of the royalties are sometimes very complex, because they are governed by more than 15.000 different taxes according to the areas and the activities… and nothing is still designed more clearly to return this field which would all alone deserve a general Code of the taxes to him.

See too

Internal bonds

External bonds

August 1st
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