Due to drought, water prices in Toulouse will rise by 42% in summer!

Jean-Luc Moudenc said it clearly. He wants to send a message and raise awareness about sobriety when it comes to drinking water. “Even if the 850,000 inhabitants of the metropolis absorb less than 1% of the lower flow of the Garonne, urban residents must receive their share,” assured the president of the Toulouse Metropole. Subsequent summers, when the Garonne became a trickle of water and owed its flow only to the release of water upstream, alerted elected officials who established a water supply plan around six axes voted this Thursday in the metropolitan council. Moreover, the summer of 2024 also promises to be difficult due to the lack of snow, despite a decent level of groundwater.

Among the measures voted on is seasonal water pricing, which will take effect June 1, 2024. Its implementation has been studied for several months and was supported by the opinion of the Economic, Social and Environmental Council (Cese) of November 2023, which advocated for this decision. Specifically, this involves charging more for water when supplies are scarce and paying less during better times to save water. “Progressive pricing was ruled out,” recalls Jean-Luc Moudenc, “because half of the French do not have individual meters, which would lead to injustice. In the metropolis of Toulouse, this figure rises to 70%. »

“Behavior will change”

Specifically, from June 1, the price of water will increase by 42% until the end of October. During the remaining seven months of the year, the price will be reduced by 30% compared to the current tariff for individuals and legal entities. For the elected representatives of the majority, this measure, without any changes in consumption, will be painless on the wallet. But the goal is to encourage residents of the Toulouse Metropole’s 36 municipalities to reduce their water consumption. “We are confident that behavior will change. And we calculated that for a person who took three showers a day in the summer to freshen up, this would represent a surplus of 6 euros per year. » Please note that these seasonal prices do not apply to municipal swimming pools to allow the frugal non-holiday crowd to take advantage of them without incurring increased admission prices.

The group of solidarity, ecology and democracy “Metropol” voted against the entry into force of seasonal prices on June 1. If they want citizens to be involved in this approach to saving water, these elected officials decry, in part, the lack of consultation. For the group Alternative for a Civic Metropolis, the measure serves to “fight the drought while allowing Veolia to maintain momentum… This is not a measure of general interest.” However, we warned about this danger when we chose to privatize water. “For their part, a select group of environmentalists proposes to “explore the possibility of progressive and inclusive pricing, with the first m3 being free.”

Most members of the Metropole d’avenir group also presented other measures to encourage Toulouse residents to change their habits, such as the distribution of 30,000 free water-saving kits this summer or the possibility of financial assistance for the purchase of water catchers. . Toulouse Métropole has finally doubled its investment budget, currently around 12 million euros, for pipe maintenance and renewal to avoid losses. Thus, 11% of water will be lost along the perimeter of the metropolis. Work also needs to be done to detect more upstream and more accurate