Toulouse: against global warming, should swimming pools be abolished in the city?
As droughts increase and water resources dwindle, private swimming pools are becoming symbols of waste and ecological nonsense for conservationists.
After the low emission zones which condemn the oldest and most polluting vehicles in the city, climate change and its increasingly precocious droughts, will it impose on us a heartbreaking revision of our use and consumption of potable water ? While prefectural decrees prohibit watering your lawn or washing your car every summer, it is the turn of private swimming pools to be in the crosshairs of certain environmentalists. On the grounds of the enormous enormous represented by these very water-intensive ornamental basins.
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Private swimming pools: When the pleasure of swimming threatens our biodiversity…
The most common size is 8X4 meters, or about 45 m3 of water when a 10X5 meter pool is around 70 m3”, explains a specialist. Figures which, brought back to the reality of an ever-expanding market, correspond to a not insignificant consumption. If you have ever flown over the Toulouse conurbation, you will have indicated a multitude of small turquoise blue rectangles swarming both in the surrounding countryside and in the urban areas. Seen from the sky, the metropolis and its surroundings give off an almost Californian image of wealthy homeowners splashing around by their swimming pool. And it’s not just an impression.
The Garonne sticks out its tongue…
The department of Haute-Garonne has more than 60,000… Not to mention those who are not declared. Admittedly, the water in swimming pools is a priori not renewed each year, but between leaks and evaporation, in the middle of summer, it is necessary on average to put back a good cubic meter each week to reinflate the level. “It may seem marginal, but it is also our way of life that we must question, plead a defender of the environment. In fact, is it very reasonable to favor small personal pleasures when the levels of the Garonne, our nourishing river, tire the tongue earlier and earlier in the season and when its flow must be reinforced by the reserves of the Pyrenean lakes? This replenishment can reach two million m3 per day and up to 50% of the water that passes through the Bazacle crossing Toulouse in the summer.
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A professional affirms it: “Swimming pools are not anti-ecological”
t this has a cost. In the event of destocking of all the reserved volumes, the support for the low water level represents 5 million euros for the year, according to figures from the joint study and development union of the Garonne (Sméag). But for Thierry d’Auzers, the boss of Everblue Piscine, it is agriculture and the intensive watering of corn, in particular, which poses a rather problem. “Swimming pools are a false debate, they are peanuts in comparison, he judges or else bathing in bathtubs must also be prohibited… Today, the water runs in a closed circuit and we do not add almost nothing. This may have been true before, when we emptied a third of the pools in winter, but this is no longer the case. Not to mention that the dimensions are smaller with also less depth”. There remains the importance of raising general awareness to raise public awareness of eco-responsible bathing…
Private swimming pools in the taxman’s sights
A swimming pool longer than ten meters must be declared to the tax office within 90 days of its completion. If the majority of swimming pools are declared spontaneously by the owners, the tax authorities note every year that new constructions have passed under the radar. If you do not declare your swimming pool, you expose yourself to a basic fine of 1,200 euros which can go up to 300,000 euros depending on your standing. A floor area at the edge of the pool can thus cost you 6,000 euros per square meter. The tax services have decided to put pressure on taxpayers who are a priori better off than the average. “Clandestine” private swimming pools are identified via aerial shots taken by drones from the National Institute for Geographic and Forest Information (IGN). Pinned fraudsters will see the amount of their property tax readjusted.