No abstract

The European Water Framework Directive enjoins its members to retrieve the good ecological status of their water resources. In France, it has resulted in the regulation of entrants' reduction plans which aim at halving the quantities of pesticides. This plan matches standard situations of non‐point pollution sources, where the water infiltrates towards the underlying aquifer. However, numerous situations exist in France in which groundwater is imperfectly protected by a shallow impervious layer in the topsoil, meaning that sinkholes may connect the surface water and relay pollution directly to the aquifer. These impervious layers induce subsurface drainage demand and construction so that the effluent can be collected at outfalls of drainage systems, and be processed in constructed wetlands before falling down the sinkholes, thus decreasing net pollution. The Champigny aquifer corresponds to this description, and has been shown to be highly vulnerable. The mission of AQUI'Brie, a non‐profit organisation, is to protect this groundwater, which is one of the water resources of Paris. Although well aware of the benefits of buffer zones, but at this time without incentives to implement them, AQUI'Brie started a co‐construction process of constructed wetlands, involving all the stakeholders of a small catchment located upstream from a sinkhole. This paper describes the co‐construction from the first meeting to the final structures in a context of high land use pressure. It shows that the number and area of constructed wetlands has diminished beyond the threshold for which the performance of depollution process may fail. In 2011, a performance assessment programme was set up to determine if the co‐constructed wetlands comply with the new current regulations. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

No abstract

Following a controversy over the construction of a waste incinerator in the Fos-sur-Mer industrial area (France), residents pointed to the lack of knowledge of the industry’s cumulative impact on their health and environment. Under pressure, some of their elected representatives supported the creation of an independent scientific organization, the Ecocitizen Institute for Pollution Awareness ( Institut écocitoyen pour la connaissance des pollutions [IECP]). Its objective was to conduct localized scientific research on the effects of pollution and to lobby the administration to change its regulatory practices. This paper examines the efforts made to ensure that the “undone science” gets done, by focusing on the specificities of this industrialized site. We look at a participatory biomonitoring experiment that aimed to document pollution in the Gulf of Fos where scientists working for the IECP accepted anglers’ requests and switched from an acknowledged sentinel species to another species. We tell the many stories that were shared with us about how conger qualified as a more suitable “cosmopolitical fish” in the study of pollution. Elaborating on actor–network theory and multispecies ethnographies, we discuss the appropriateness of congers as the newly appointed sentinel species. We argue that this demonstrates the importance of the “ecology of relations” in maintaining the livability of the area.

Résumé : Cet article relate les efforts entrepris par l'association ANPER-TOS depuis 1958 pour dénoncer et faire réprimer les pollutions aquatiques. Il montre comment certains pêcheurs, aidés par des juristes, sont devenus les porte-parole d'entités non-humaines jusquelà exclues de la représentation. Il pose le problème de leur prise en charge politique étant donné leurs singularités et les médiations techniques souvent lourdes qu'elles requièrent avant de pouvoir être entendues. L'article évoque plus particulièrement une affaire de porcherie industrielle survenue en Lozère qui pose la question de la matérialité et des êtres à prendre en compte pour la composition des mondes ruraux communs.Summary: This article accounts for the efforts made by ANPER-TOS since 1958 to blow the whistle and get water pollution acts sanctioned. It shows how some fishermen, helped by legal professionals, became the spoke-persons for non-human entities which were until then excluded from representation. It discusses the problem of their political acknowledgement and management considering their singularities and the highly technical mediations they need to be heard. The article evokes particularly a trial concerning a pig factory farming located in Lozère, in France, and questions the materiality and the number of entities that should be taken into account in the making of common rural worlds.

Résumé La directive-cadre européenne sur l’eau (DCE, 2000) innove en définissant un cadre européen pour la politique de l’eau, en instituant une approche globale protectrice de la ressource et en fixant des objectifs environnementaux assortis d’une obligation de résultats. Malgré ces avancées, plusieurs scientifiques lui adressent des reproches qui dépassent le cadre des débats habituels entre chercheurs. Le concept de « bon état », intrinsèque à la DCE, est peu utilisé par ces derniers. Cet article revient sur les controverses qui animent les milieux scientifiques impliqués dans l’opérationnalisation de la DCE et suggère d’autres cadres d’analyse de l’expertise que ceux couramment utilisés en science politique, élaborés à partir d’une analyse des carrières et des cultures épistémiques de scientifiques ayant contribué de près ou de loin à la préparation de la DCE.

No abstract

Cet article traite de la place des passions, des savoirs amateurs et de la tactique dans les mobilisations environnementales. À travers l’histoire d’ANPER-TOS, association créée par des pêcheurs à la mouche comptant aujourd’hui de nombreux juristes en son sein, il narre la rencontre de deux mondes et l’élaboration d’une forme d’action collective originale à partir du contentieux. Si pêcheurs et juristes ont fait bénéficier l’association de leurs connaissances respectives, celle des milieux pour les premiers et celle du droit pour les seconds, ensemble ils ont développé une expertise unique issue de leur pratique et de leur mètis collective qui questionne les hiérarchies existantes entre savoirs experts et amateurs, notamment en matière environnementale.