Menton Enters Business With Company Involved in Flint Michigan’s Water Crisis

As reported by Press Agence, on Nov. 14, the Mayor of Menton and president of the French Riviera Community (CARF), Yves Juhel, along with several senior executives at the Veolia company, signed a three-year memorandum called the “Experimental Territory on Climate Change.” This protocol designates CARF as an experimental territory and is the first agreement of this nature to be signed between a local authority and the Veolia group.

The agreement identifies three areas of concern— water, energy and waste — and pledges to mobilize 120,000 euros over the next three years to develop sustainable solutions to these issues. Mayor Juhel noted that the initiative is consistent with the city’s commitment to “fight against climate change.”

Juhel was elected to mayor’s office on a campaign promise to implement 24 of the 32 measures proposed in the “Pact for Transition,” a national agreement signed last January by Menton mayoral candidates. In doing so, each candidate pledged to pursue sustainable solutions to issues of resource scarcity, affordable energy and environmental preservation in the region. Nice-Matin reported at the beginning of November that a group of concerned citizens had requested an appointment with the mayor to assess the extent to which his campaign promises for sustainable transition had been implemented.

Menton has indeed been making some efforts to implement changes for the ecological transition, such as installing chickadee boxes and bat lodges between February and May of this year. The city also began work on a bike path in August. However, Juhel’s campaign promised much more radical action, like installing anti-macro waste nets at the exit of valleys, planting more than 3,000 trees by 2026 and creating a municipal service dedicated to the environment.

Thus, the agreement with Veolia could be a more concrete step by Mayor Juhel to fulfill the “Pact for Transition” objectives and uphold his environmental platform. Unfortunately, the exact terms of the “experimental territory” designation remain unclear. There is no public information on specific projects that will emerge from this agreement, nor is there a clear explanation of where the 120,000 pledged euros will come from. 

What is Veolia? 

Veolia is a significant actor in this agreement, especially considering the company’s recent engagement in a number of sustainable initiatives across the Côte d’Azur. 

Veolia is a private, for-profit French enterprise involved in water management, waste management and energy services. It aims to be “the benchmark company for ecological transformation” by providing sustainable access to scarce resources. Currently, the company operates across five continents, with 5,000 wastewater treatment and drinking water plants in France alone. 

On Nov. 26, Var Martin reported that the company had announced a new project at its Almanarre treatment plant to transform wastewater into hydrogen. Hydrogen can be used as an energy source and is particularly well suited to electric transportation. According to the Var-Provence Mediterranee Territory director, this innovation is “a world first.” The technology at the plant can produce up to 10 kilograms of hydrogen per day; for context, one kilogram of hydrogen alone could power a small vehicle for 100 kilometers. If this project were to be applied at an industrial scale, it could produce several hundred kilograms of hydrogen per day. However, making this transformation on an industrial scale would cost a hefty sum of three million euros.

Only days before this announcement, on Nov. 22, Nice Matin reported the launch of Veolia’s Arianeo project in Nice, which it claims will serve the energy needs of 25,000 inhabitants by 2026. Similarly, in September of this year, Veolia unveiled a project in the Arenas district of Nice to create a renewable energy network using wastewater. Representatives of the company expressed the need to lift the “regulatory lock,” allowing them to “go beyond experiments, as (they) were able to do in Sainte-Maxime.” Veolia is involved with wastewater reclamation solutions to water green spaces in Sainte-Maxime. Notably, Veolia is also one of eight companies competing to receive a five-month support program to develop and test a solution to the City of Marseille’s “Smart Port Challenge.”

Veolia’s interest in developing sustainable infrastructure along the Côte d’Azur reflects the increasingly evident impact of climate change in the region, especially in the Alpes Maritimes, which was hard hit by drought this summer. In this context, Veolia’s interest in this region is no surprise: the Cote d’Azur needs innovative solutions to face the growing threat of climate change, especially regarding water management. Yet, the impact of this private company’s rapid involvement in a number of communities across this region deserves careful attention, especially in light of Veolia’s controversial past.

A History of Scandal

Veolia has long been involved in traditionally publicly managed services such as water, energy and waste management; however, their focus on sustainable transition is a recent development in the company’s evolution. In fact, a couple of years back, the Veolia group attracted attention over quite a different matter: 

In 2016, Michigan brought Veolia before the American justice system over the Flint drinking water scandal. Flint and Veolia entered a contract in February of 2015, the terms of which entailed Veolia checking the water quality over claims made by residents that it was polluted. Veolia assured the city twice that the water “met federal criteria.” 

In 2019, the Guardian reported that Veolia executives knew that the residents of Flint, Michigan were at risk of being poisoned by lead in their tap water “months before the city publicly admitted the problem.” Email exchanges in February of 2015 show that senior employees at Veolia were aware of the potential for lead from city pipes to leach into the drinking water. Yet, the company never made a public recommendation or declaration to this effect. Notably, Veolia was exploring “lucrative contracts with the city” at this time. 

Veolia remains adamant that the government alone is to blame for the events in Flint. To see the “facts” of the, pay a visit to the website they made specifically to address this matter. 

What to make of CARF-Veolia deal

Though Veolia’s involvement in the Flint crisis has rightly been subject to heavy criticism, it is not a case of mismanagement on the part of the company, but rather the prioritization of private interest to the detriment of public wellbeing — an expected risk when for-profit companies are involved in the management of public services. 

Veolia’s regional projects indeed appear to offer some truly innovative solutions to issues of resource management, especially their work converting waste into hydrogen power. However, private companies should remain under scrutiny to ensure they do not act against popular interests. Nonetheless, considering the increasing severity of climate change in the region, perhaps any projects concerning sustainable solutions are welcome developments. Though the terms and implications of this recent deal between CARF and Veolia remain disappointingly vague, the promise to mobilize substantial funds toward sustainable action is hopeful. With sustained pressure from citizens — as has already been witnessed — the Experimental Territory on Climate Change agreement has the potential to contribute to tangible change in Menton and the surrounding municipalities.