Lake Annecy in its unique Alpine setting is one of the most beautiful lakes in the world
It is also one of the cleanest, thanks to the remarkable efforts of the local community
and in particular the work of a few exceptional individuals
This is their story
How it all began
One sunny autumn Sunday in 1946, just two years after the liberation of France, something like the following conversation took place between a doctor and a citizen from his home town. It took place again pretty much every week for the next ten years, with different citizens in different places.
The doctor was otherwise well-respected locally but about whom everyone was beginning to say, "Well, he’s a bit crazy!". The doctor had been looking forward to this day for a long time. Diving had been his cherished pastime since childhood. The lake was a place where he could escape the day-to-day world and dream a little. A place he could sink beneath the surface, and get up close to the mysterious and beautiful world into which it was his constant delight to have been born.
The setting - a lake shore by a small provincial French town, Annecy. Here the doctor could forget for a while the bitter memories of five past years of war, the destruction of places he loved, and death of friends and colleagues. Today, for the first time for so long, he could return again to peaceful thoughts and let Nature heal his heart. It was then he noticed there was something wrong.
Citizen: So what is wrong with the lake, anyway?
Doctor: I don’t know exactly, but it seems to me cloudier than before – in a kind of unpleasant way.
Citizen: So what, anyway? I’ve lived by the lake all my life and the cloudiness of lake water comes and goes as things grow in summer and die in winter. The transparency of the lake is always changing – so why is this now a problem?
Doctor: Well I know the transparency changes from month to month. But I have been diving this lake for many years, since I was a boy, and the cloudiness I see now is worse than anything I have seen before at the same time of the year.
Citizen: OK, and …?
Doctor: Well, it’s what happens to a lake when you dump too much human sewage and industrial waste into it. All the villages around the lake are dumping their sewage and waste, untreated, straight into the lake.
Most people just saw the surface of the lake and assumed everything was fine,...
Citizen: I hear what you say. But why is that suddenly a problem now? We’ve been doing that for ever, and the lake is as clear and blue now as it has ever been. So what’s the big problem?
Doctor: Yes we’ve been doing it for ever, but up till now the lake has been able to cope because it has a natural self-cleaning capability. Each year around a quarter of the lake water is renewed by rainfall flowing in streams from the surrounding mountains, and the old water drains out into the river Thiou, so sewage is partly flushed out by this flow of water. Additionally sewage is broken down in the lake by the action of sunlight and bacteria. Since lake Annecy has a large surface area it gets lots of sunshine and this is what has helped keep the lake clean.
Citizen: Exactly, you made the point for me. Why is all this a problem if the lake copes with it perfectly well naturally?
Doctor: Because the number of people living around the lake has increased dramatically in recent times, and is increasing even more rapidly now the war is over. Moreover new industries have relocated to Annecy. Ironically all this is because they are attracted by the beautiful lake their negligence is destroying.
Citizen: OK, I understand. More people equals more waste. But how do you know the lake’s natural cleaning processes, which you just described, can’t cope? Where is your information? Where are the scientific studies? And the lake belongs to the government after all, what is it doing about it, if the situation is as bad as you say?
Doctor: I don’t know. You see there are no laws in France to regulate the quality of lake water, and there is no ministry or local authority specifically responsible for this. I am trying to persuade people in our local council to organize some studies but it is not easy because studies are expensive and time-consuming, and everyone has got better things to do rebuilding our country after the war.
Citizen: OK so no-one else thinks there is a problem – not our town council, not the regional prefecture, not the government. But you do. How come you can see what no-one else can?
...but Dr Servettaz was a diver and saw the state of the lake with his own eyes.
Autowrack by Achim R. Schloeffel licensed under CC By-SA 3.0, mono version of original.
Not Lake Annecy, but indicative of its former state: see Dr Servettaz p.150 "Les fonds du lac se révélaient le miroir du comportement des riverains à son égard."
Doctor: Because I love lake Annecy and caring about it helps me see things other people don't. Because I am a doctor and have been trained in science. Because I read about this stuff all the time and I want to understand more. Because I have studied the work of a great lake scientist called François-Alphonse Forel. And because I have just read a paper by Professor E. Hubault which explains that what is happening in the lake is called “eutrophication”. But most of all because I am a diver and can see what is beneath the surface of the lake, which most people don’t see. The lake is becoming cloudier and that tells me something fundamental and bad is happening.
Citizen: But as far as I can see everything is fine – the sun continues to shine and the lake is as blue as ever.
Doctor: But you need to see more than you can see from the shore with your eyes. You need to look with your eyes beneath the surface and understand with your mind what is happening. The lake is not the motionless fixed body of pure water it appears to be in tourist posters. It is a living world in constant motion, full of the life and death of countless plants and animals, much of which is smaller than the eye can see. All this intricate web of life has achieved a delicate equilibrium over millennia and it is now threatened by the rapid increase in nutrients – i.e. raw sewage - which we are discharging into the lake.
Citizen: OK, so you have seen something that no one else in authority has seen, no specialists from the hygiene department, no elected representatives, no civil servants from the government. OK, hard to believe, but just suppose I go along with you. What is the problem with putting more nutrients in to the lake, for goodness sake, even if it is more than the lake is used to? It’ll just make everything grow more. We willingly put large amounts of the same stuff on our fields to make things grow. It must be good, we’ll get more crops on our farms, and more and bigger fish in our lake! What’s not to like?
Doctor: You are right that the sewage we pump into the lake contains nutrients which cause an increase in growth. But the next question is what exactly will grow and how fast will it grow? Will everything grow in the same way? In the lake, for every fish you can see there is ten times the weight of microscopic animals and plants. The smallest plants are called algae and can only be seen when they gather together in their millions, clouding the water and forming blooms. The life-cycle of your favourite fish, the perch, is around eight years. The life-cycle of algae is around two days. If you suddenly increase the amount of food, which is going to get it first and grow fastest - the fish or the algae?
Dr Servettaz understood the danger of direct sewage discharge into the lake, ...
© CC BY-SA 3.0 File:Culvert with a drop.jpeg Wikipedia Not Lake Annecy but indicative of the problems it faced 60 years ago.
Citizen: OK good point - the algae I guess.
Doctor: And what happens when the algae suddenly start growing rapidly? They outgrow everything around them. Although they are only one species out of a population of thousands in the lake, they outgrow everything else and so dominate the lake.
Citizen: So is that your problem?
Doctor: That’s just the start. The real problem is that as they grow they cover the surface of the lake with a sheet of green slime and cut off all light beneath.
Citizen: And this is a problem, because…?
Doctor: …because plant life in the lake below depends on photosynthesis to grow, and all animal life depends on plant life to survive, and photosynthesis depends on sunlight penetrating the surface water on the lake.
Citizen: OK. No sunlight - no life. I get that, at least.
Doctor: Actually that’s only half the problem. The other half is oxygen. Animals in the lake need oxygen to breathe like we do. Unlike us, fish and tiny lake creatures can absorb oxygen that is dissolved in the lake water.
Citizen: I know about dissolved oxygen – that’s why I bubble up air in my aquarium at home.
Doctor: The life-cycle of the algae, or cyanobacteria to use its scientific name, is around 2 days, meaning it grows very quickly. But it means it dies very quickly too. And when it dies it stinks and sinks. It decomposes and falls to the bottom of the lake. As it rots bacteria eat it and this process consumes the oxygen dissolved in the lake.
Citizen: So more sewage means much more cyanobacteria which means no sunlight and no oxygen and all this means no life in the lake?
Doctor: I wouldn’t put it quite so simply but it’s a start. And we are not just talking about life in the lake.
Citizen: What then?
...and was distressed at rubbish dumped by the lake, as if it were his own garden.
Not Lake Annecy but indicative of the problems there 60 years ago.
Doctor: If this happens we’re going to have bigger problems. A hundred thousand people depend on the lake for their drinking water. Cyanobacteria clogs the filters at the water-purifying station and so threatens our water supply. Tourists are not going to want to come and bathe in the slimy green waters of our lake. Declining tourism means hotels and restaurants begin to close, and jobs are lost. Industries will not want to relocate their head offices here, because their staff won’t want to move here. And so, with no local opportunities, all the talented young people from Annecy will leave to find work somewhere else.
Citizen: Not good, then?
Doctor: So if the lake dies the local community dies. Do you understand what the problem is now?
Citizen: Well yes, except for one thing. If all this is true, as you say, how come the government isn’t doing anything about it? How come I haven’t read about in the newspapers? We had local elections just recently and I read all the campaign leaflets – the big issues were the economy, rebuilding, investment and tourism. There was not one single mention in any of the election leaflets about this big threat to the lake. How come no-one talks about problems of the lake except you?
Doctor: Well I guess someone has to be right first.
Citizen: But, you see, even if one crazy person is right and everyone else is wrong, you have a bigger problem than even the one you just described. Those hundred thousand people living around the lake are increasing in number every year and they all bring more sewage. How do you deal with that?
Doctor: There’s only one solution. Somehow, we need to stop all the sewage going into the lake, now and forever. Perhaps one big sewer pipe around the lake...
Citizen: But that’s your craziest idea yet - a huge sewer pipe all the way around the lake. That’s around 45 kilometres in length - through everybody’s back garden, and under all the roads and shops and villages. And that’s just for starters. Then you’ll have to connect up every single house and factory to this big pipe. Even before you run out of money for the engineering works you’ll be swamped in legal cases from angry landowners caught in your way. Can’t you find a simpler solution? How about we dump some chemicals in the lake to kill the algae.
Doctor: These are toxins – remember we get all our drinking water from this lake!
Citizen: But if you insist on your big sewage pipe – how will you ever get it to work? Sanitation is the responsibility of each individual commune and, as you well know, being French they are all immensely proud of their independence, particularly from their big brother, the town of Annecy. The French invented the idea of the commune and today there are 36, 000 of them all across France, each with their own mayor and administration and bureaucracy and pride. This is not Russian communism where everyone does as the government tells them. You would need to get all of them not just to agree to your crazy ideas, but to work together in an unprecedented collaboration. How do you go about that?
Doctor: I’m not sure – we need to find a way. I need to talk to a lot of people, and in particular to my good friend Charles Bosson who may well be elected the next mayor of Annecy. We’ll have to work together on this somehow.
Citizen: And even if you get the local communes on board, where are they going to get the money from? What you are talking about would be one of the biggest infrastructural investment projects ever to be undertaken outside of Paris. Annecy is a small town, and the surrounding villages are tiny – they just don’t have the money for this! And look, the war has only just ended. France is a wreck. The government has much bigger problems to deal with, and far too few resources to deal with them all. They don’t have the money or the inclination.
Doctor: We’ll have to find a way.
Citizen: And even if you did get the communes organized, and even if you found the money, a project like this would take years, even decades, to complete. How on earth do you make sure that something as big and complex as this is seen through to the end and not dropped amidst scandal and recrimination before it’s half way through?
Doctor: I don't know, we’ll have to find a way.
Citizen: OK my friend, good luck! Look, you seem to be a decent chap and, who knows, there may be something to what you say. But it ain’t going to happen, so why don’t you just give it up and give us all a break?
But the good doctor didn’t give it up, and he didn't go away.
Similar conversations took place on countless occasions during the next ten years in and around the communes of Annecy, in its bars and restaurants, at fishermen’s annual general meetings, in the homes of elected officials, at the desks of the local administration and in the offices of the responsible government departments in Annecy, the department of Hygiene and the department of Roads and Bridges.
The history of those ten years of passionate but tactful argument, sometimes humorous, sometimes forceful, always reasonable and relentlessly patient, can be read about in a few brief paragraphs on the website of SILA, (Syndicat Intercommunal du Lac Annecy) the organisation which was eventually set up to deal with the problem of cleaning the lake.
In the 60 years since then SILA has invested more than 400 million euro into safeguarding the lake, including building a state-of-the-art central wastewater processing plant and 7 more local processing plants, and constructing more than 1500 km of sewer pipeline, all connected to one main collector pipe completely encircling the lake. It has succeeded in answering all of the Citizen's impossible questions and has made the good doctor’s vision a reality.
But this remarkable story deserves more than one short paragraph, as does the immense, pioneering work of environmental protection eventually carried out by SILA.
Even more remarkable is that this unlikely story of an immensely ambitious campaign to protect the environment, had an almost identical counterpart, taking place at the same time, with a similar set of issues and solutions, at Lake Washington in the United States.
Both these environmental campaigns took place well before the emergence during the late sixties of the modern environmental movement and both were tremendously successful.
Most remarkable of all, at the time of writing this website, many citizens living by these two lakes do know of each other's existence.
This website was created to celebrate two proud histories, twin pillars of the modern environmental movement, and the two beautiful lakes they have preserved for us.
SILA was created in 1957 to prevent wastewater discharge into Lake Annecy. Initially a grouping of just 8 communes, it now serves 48 communes representing 230,000 inhabitants.