In the Savoyard massif, the lack of precipitation and grazing upsets the practices of breeders and producers of tome of the Bauges.
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You have to climb a few meters in the grilled grass, above the Lauzarin pasture chalet, to reach the water tank. It stands there, about 1,400 meters above sea level in the Combe de l’Arclusaz, on the Savoyard side of the Bauges Massif. Stones have been arranged at this location, as found for miles around, mixed with vegetation. But some have been sculpted here, placed next to two flowers, silver carlines. Above, a marble plate: “Souvenir/Antoine Gimondi/Henri Lattat/June 6, 1965”. The story tells that the two men died asphyxiated while they were descended into the cistern in search of water. “The War of Water is not an empty word,” blows Jean-Paul Frenod, farmer exploiting a neighboring pasture.
In this territory of production of the AOP volume of the Bauges, in this summer 2022, we are concerned about this rain which does not fall, of these animals which no longer have much to eat in the mountain pastures and Even less in the valley, even though the AOP specifications requires at least 120 days of complete pasture during the summer. It pleased 15 millimeters on Friday July 29, but it is really little seen the needs. On the same day, the Savoy prefecture placed the area in “crisis”, the highest level on the drought scale. “At less than 50 millimeters of water, the situation will not improve,” thinks Cédric Laboret, president of the Savoie Mont-Blanc Chamber of Agriculture.
The quest for water and its sources runs to “Obsession”, admits Laurent Ferroud, 59, alpagist at Lauzarin, baker in the valley. But on these karst expanses not retaining water, the problem of the scarcity of the resource does not date from this year. “I still hear my father tell me” here, we do not play with water “, after giving me a pie because I had launched on the dog, recalls the alpagist. We did not throw Water, we always reused it three times. “So when spring arrives, even today,” you have to feel the thing “, know when it is necessary to intervene to capture a source. You have to know the places too. There for example, by bowing very low and walking away from an old vaulted tunnel in stones, we arrive at a discreet capture.
“In fifteen days, it is empty”
Today, sources are rare. “Twenty-five years ago, we told ourselves that it was going to happen a lot of time before we no longer see water in the Bauges, remembers Jean-Paul Frenod, 60. We said that the sources Bound to give. But no longer. “Since the 1999 storm and the heat wave of 2003,” there was a break “of the climate, notes the sixties. He has part of his heifers in an alpine pasture, a few kilometers further, and his dairy cows below in the valley. It has already been a week since he left them at night, for lack of grass to graze. But “what mainly causes me to worry is September”. There is still past alpine grass for three weeks to a month. But water? He has a hill restraint of 300 m 3 , but the animals “drink so much that it is not going to do the summer. If it is not raining, if it continues to be hot, in Fifteen days, it is empty. “
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