Chapter Three

  Albert Janin establishes a pioneering organization

Draft Project for Sanitation. Request for funding.

3.2   [Editor's note.  Long before the creation of SILA in 1957, during the second world war, another association of communes had been established.  It is this earlier association to which Albert Janin refers.] "The association of communes of Lake Annecy was created by decree of 9 December 1943 with the aim of protecting all 29 communes which comprise the neighbourhood of Annecy and the region around the Lake. The preservation of the purity of its waters is of vital interest as much for public hygiene as for tourism and fishing. The riverside communes, under ever increasing demand for water, are more and more resorting to the solution of pumping lake water. Bathing areas are becoming more and more numerous and are more frequently visited. Fishing also constitutes one of the attractions of the Lake where species of noble fish flourish (corrégeones etc).

3.3   Additionally, providing sanitation for the riverside communes is proving to be more and more necessary in order to protect the lake from dangers of contamination. Although the lake for the moment only receives relatively small quantities of waste-water, the process of natural dispersion of effluent is operating poorly because of the lake's calm water and so its biological equilibrium is proving to be somewhat precarious.

3.4   In these circumstances, and in view of numerous studies carried out since 1951 to understand better the phenomenon of self-cleaning, the Board of Hygiene has concluded in its meeting of 15 April 1955, that it supports the plan of installing sewage pipes which can be connected to an intercommunal network of sewer mains running around the lake which will in turn constitute a definitive solution to cleaning up the lake.

3.5   The Minister of the M.R.U., in his decision of 8 July 1955, has confirmed this advice and given his agreement in principle to a regional sanitation study which contemplates the construction of two separate mains sewers one for the left bank and one for the right to be connected to an intercommunal water treatment plant at Cran-Gevrier,  and for individual sewer pipes to drain the north and the extreme north of the "Plaine des Fins" towards the river Fier and eventually the treatment plant.

3.6   Besides, a first draft project of cleaning up of Annecy, Cran-Gevrier, Seynod, Annecy-le-Vieux was considered on 26 March 1956 at the advice of the Board of Hygiene and approved on the 18 July 1956 by the M.R.U. with some small reservations.

3.7   Taking into account these studies, A syndicate for cleaning up  has been set up which unites the communes of Talloires, Menthon, Veyrier, Annecy-le-Vieux on the right bank, and Sevrier on the left bank and Annecy, Seynod and Cran-Gevrier."

3.8   "The draft project of cleaning up these communes includes also the construction all the way to Annecy-Cran-Gevrier of:

an inter-communal mains sewage pipe for the right bank as far as Talloires (near the bay) as well as a network of communal sewage pipes for the neighbourhoods crossed by the mains pipe (Talloires, Menthon, Veyrier, Annecy-le-Vieux).

and a  Water-Treatment Plant. First Phase: Settling - Digestion

3.9   Having heard the presentation of the Secretary General and the Chief Engineer of the Department of Bridges and Roads,

And in view of the advice given on the 26 March 1956 by the Board of Hygiene in relation to a draft project for the sanitation of the communes of Annecy, Annecy-le-Vieux, Cran-Gevrier, Seynod, which concluded that the biologically purified waste-water should be discharged into the river Fier

And considering at the same time that even though this first purification should significantly improve the situation in the river Fier, it is necessary nevertheless to extend rapidly the network of sewage pipes to the communes around the lake (Veyrier, Menthon, Talloires, Sevrier) in order to protect as far as possible the lake whose waters are used for pumping drinking water and for bathing

We ask that the first phase of the water treatment plant initially planned for the complete purification for 40,000 permanent inhabitants should be reduced to a first phase to a Settling - Digestion but extended to 50,000 to 60,000 inhabitants corresponding to the summer population of the first communes to be cleaned (Annecy, Annecy-le-Vieux, Cran-Gevrier, and Seynod).

3.10  This solution will allow the rapid connection of the waste treatment plant to a larger number of users and free up a credit of 40 million (French Francs) which could be used for the construction of sewage pipes around the lake.

3.11  Made and discussed at the meeting on the day and month aforementioned.

The President

A Janin"

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