Claude Comparet, au centre, lors de la dernière assemblée générale d'Eau Secours 30.
Eau Secours 30 pointe du doigt le prix de l’eau potable et de la redevance du Spanc.
On December 16, the Nîmes Métropole community council voted on the prices of drinking water and sanitation for the year 2025. Findings from the Eau Secours 30 association: “It's a double whammy for the inhabitants of the garrigue. The increase will be 3% on the amount including tax per cubic meter for subscribers to collective sanitation. On the other hand, those who have individual sanitation will see a 14% increase in the price of a cubic meter of drinking water: it goes from €1.8985 excluding tax to €2.1643 excluding tax. To top it all off, the annual Spanc fee (1) will increase by 13.4%, going from €16.75 excluding tax to €19 excluding tax. In value, it's low, but not in relative terms”, notes Claude Comparet, president of the association.
An association, born in 2015 at the time of the creation of Spanc, a service carrying out checks in the districts of Nîmes which are not connected to the sewer system for topographical reasons. “At the time, there were a lot of problems, a lot of feedback from residents. Now, things are tending to settle down, even if the Spanc produces reports that are difficult for residents to understand. We are here to help them.” All the more effectively since Claude Comparet is a member of the Spanc operating board and Claude Allet, another Eau Secours 30 volunteer, is a member of the Nîmes Métropole board of directors. “We therefore have access to valuable information and we can intervene. In addition to sanitation, we are also interested in water, which is increasingly expensive and whose quality worries us more and more.”
2,164 installations are said to be non-compliant
If the increase in the price of drinking water is explained by “the radical change in the methods of calculating and allocating the fees collected by the water agency”, Eau Secours 30 tique on the other hand on the evolution of the annual Spanc fee: “The authority, which operates this service, explains this increase by the desire to balance its budget due to the reduction in the number of renovations and new equipment noted in 2023. This is very surprising when we note that the number of users subject to the tax has increased by 100 to 200 more people each year for a decade.”
In addition, of the 10,000 installations listed in the Nîmes area, 2,164 are said to be non-compliant with an obligation to carry out work within a time limit.“They are classified into three categories: compliant, said to be in a state of use (compliant 15 years ago before no longer being so with changes in standards while not generating proven pollution) or non-compliant, explains the president of the association. In terms of health, this last situation is not great… The Spanc has no repressive power. But, if there is pollution, it can transmit information to the City which has police powers.”
He is convinced that non-collective sanitation “is not a bad thing if the installation works well. We discharge the water onto the ground of our land and not into the Mediterranean as can be the case with collective sanitation.” As many details as the association with 35 members, individuals and neighborhood committees mixed, delivers during its annual general meeting or on its Facebook page.
(1) Non-collective public sanitation service. I subscribe to read the rest