1 hour from Toulouse, what is the use of this new river created from scratch on the banks of the Garonne?
By David Saint-Sernin
Published on
updated on 20 Aug 22 at 14:26
It is 450 meters long and zigzags parallel to the Garonne the level of Malause hydroelectric damnear Valence d’Agen, in the Tarn and Garonne.
1 hour from Toulouse, it is neither more nor less than a new river that has been created near the river. It was taken on July 1, 2022 and it has a vital role.
Dam crossing
This book, built by EDF Hydro Sud-Ouest pendant almost two years and which cost 8 million euros is “the longest fish farming franchise structure of a dam in France”, according to EDF, which explains:
“This ecological development allows migratory fish arriving from the ocean to go up the Garonne to reproduce in the Pyrenees”.
Atypical by its realization on nearly 5 hectares, sized to the size of the river and the hydroelectric dam, this type of installation is already present on the Garonne.
At Bazacle, Golfech…
The Bazacle hydroelectric plant in Toulouse has had a fish pass since the end of the 1980s.
“The first obstacle from the ocean, the Golfech hydroelectric power station, in Tarn-et-Garonne, was equipped in 1987 with a fish lift and then an eel ramp to allow free development for these species. The device has made it possible, since the implementation in 1993 of a video-control system, to count the
passage of more than 3.2 million fish, migratory ones representing 56% of the species”, recalls EDF.
The Adour-Garonne basin is the last hydrographic basin in Europe to accommodate the 8 species of highly migratory fish (salmon, sea trout, big shad and dummy shad, sea lamprey and river lamprey, sturgeon and eel).
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