Question 17507 — water and sanitation

Summary

Mr. Lionel Duparay questions the Minister of Ecological Transition, Biodiversity and International Negotiations on Climate and Nature on the environmental, economic and regulatory consequences of the restrictions applicable to car washing stations during periods of drought. The guide to implementing measures to restrict water use during periods of drought, which serves as a reference for the development of prefectural framework orders, provide that at the “crisis” severity level, the washing of vehicles in professional stations is prohibited, with the exception of a few restrictively listed uses. However, this provision today appears to be out of step with the available data concerning the actual consumption of water and the environmental performance of professional car washes. The study published in March 2024 by the Institute National Committee for the Circular Economy (INEC) recalls that the approximately 11,000 French washing stations represent only around 0.2% of national consumption of drinking water. It also highlights that 63% of motorists use a professional station, compared to only 25% who wash their vehicle at home. Above all, this study highlights the potentially counterproductive nature of the bans currently planned. It would be enough for a small proportion of users to postpone washing their vehicle at home to cancel out the expected water savings, while increasing the risks of pollution linked to the lack of wastewater treatment. Conversely, professional stations have effluent treatment systems and, for the most recent ones, equipment allowing up to 70% of the water used to be recycled. This situation seems difficult to reconcile with the objectives of the Water plan, which aims for a 10% reduction in water withdrawals by 2030 and encourages the most economical and efficient uses. Furthermore, the restriction orders have particularly serious economic consequences for car wash operators. These highly capital-intensive companies continue to bear significant fixed costs. throughout the duration of administrative closures: repayments of loans, rents, maintenance contracts, insurance, subscriptions, social contributions, local taxation, in particular the property tax of businesses. If the Government has indicated that these companies could benefit from the partial activity system, this measure only covers part of the salary costs and does not compensate for operating losses or fixed charges, even though the interruption of activity results exclusively from an administrative police decision taken with an objective of general interest. This situation creates a breakdown in equality between economic actors subject to restrictions. In this context, he asks if the Government plans to develop the guide to implementing measures to restrict the use of water in order to provide modalities application of restrictions taking into account the efforts made by operators in terms of water savings, recycling, effluent treatment and, where applicable, the use of unconventional water resources, whether a scientific evaluation of the real effectiveness of these prohibitions will be undertaken in order to verify that they actually make it possible to achieve the sobriety objectives pursued by the Water Plan and, finally, if the Government plans to create a system to compensate for operating losses or, failing that, a mechanism to cover part of the fixed costs (insurance, loans, social contributions, CFE, maintenance contracts, etc.) borne by operators during periods of administrative closure, like the exceptional systems implemented during other closures decided by the State.

Machine translation from French. The official text remains authoritative.

Timeline

No timeline events have been ingested for this record yet.

Votes

No vote records are attached yet.

Versions

No version snapshots stored. Document URLs remain at the source.

Documents

No documents linked.

Sponsors

No sponsors or actors listed by the source.

Related records

No cross-record relationships stored yet.