Over time, it became obvious that the stone banks, called casiers Giradon after Henri Giradon, the engineer who designed and promoted them, profoundly affected the old marshy banks, drying them out.
This allowed thick vegetation to grow, with a high proportion of invasive trees and shrubs, creating a ‘green desert’ instead of the environmentally rich wetland marshes.
Costing €8.2million, the work will see the steel nets of stones lifted, vegetation cleared and the restoration of 5km of iônes and drainage canals.
Where there is now a solid mass of green growth, there will be, if all goes to plan, a bank made up of six islands and eight hectares of wetlands, reconnected to the Rhône and linked to the river’s water level.
At least 2,500 trees will have to be felled, of which 25% are invasive species, but the project will see a total of 5,200 young trees and shrubs planted to compensate.
Work started in January and will pause in March, to avoid damaging bird nests during the spring and summer, before restarting in September.
How the river looked in 1950CNR
The six-month work periods will be maintained until 2028.
Similar work started upstream of Lyon in 2000. So far, it has seen 120km of the river’s banks returned to a more natural setting.
The Compagnie Nationale du Rhône, France’s largest hydro-electric producer and which, with other agencies, is responsible for the upkeep of the river, has already invested €100million in similar work, including the restoration of 77 iônes.
*The work will not interfere with government plans to create a Marseille-Lyon port, linking the Mediterranean and boosting capacity for maritime container traffic along the Rhône to Lyon.
“The Marseille-Lyon port will use mainly existing canals which, for the most part, are separate from the river,” a CNR spokesman told The Connexion.
