Environment

The small commune of Treffiagat, in Finistère (on the south coast of France), has recently been in the spotlight. Local authorities have decided to buy back 7 houses threatened with being submerged by the sea. If no lasting solution is found, they will be demolished. 

A dune separates these homes, built in the 70s and 80s, from the beach. The dune is getting thinner every year, and threatens to give way under the weight of storms, driving the sea violently inland. 

Stéphane Le Doaré, President of the Communauté de communes du Pays bigouden sud (CCPBS, in Finistère), asserted that “all the diking systems” that have been implemented “over the last 15-20 years, i.e. dikes, riprap, piles, are not effective”. He also pointed out that the local authority has to spend “more than 100,000 euros” every year to reinforce the dune, reinforcing it with thousands of sqaure meters of sand, according to BFMTV. “It's a bottomless pit, a band-aid on a wooden leg, because the sea is stronger than we are,” confided Stéphane Le Doaré.

The president of the CCPBS also explained that the safety of local residents behind the dune could no longer be guaranteed in the long term. “Models show that the sea will inexorably move in at this point,” he explained. For this reason, the CCPBS decided to buy back 7 houses in order to destroy them entirely, then fifteen in total, and more in the long term. As BFMTV reports, at the end of the process, the hamlet will be returned to nature. Behind the dune, the authorities are planning to build a dyke to protect the remaining houses.

(MH with AsD - Source: BFMTV - Illustration: Unsplash)