Drinking water network: the Collectivité is in a position of force to order repairs

At the hearing on June 10, the rapporteur public upheld that the repairs that needed to be done on the Orient Bay drinking water network was of public interest, so it was therefore the responsibility of the Collectivité. And notwithstanding the fact that the said network is private since it is located inside the subdivision. But finally, the administrative court ruled and rejected the homeowners’ association’s request for the cancellation of the formal notice of the Collectivité to have the repairs done within three months.

If the public interest had been accepted, it would certainly have been likely to encourage other private subdivisions to ask the Collectivité to repair their drinking water network. This case is not the only one. There are a number of private subdivisions with networks that are in very poor condition in Saint-Martin. Such is the case in the areas of Anse Marcel Cove, Mont Choisy, Terres Basses and even subdivisions in Concordia.

The networks are in very poor condition because they have never been maintained and now, the bill seems very high - several tens of thousands of euros - for the co-owners to have the necessary repairs done. In the meantime, they’re paying very steep water bills: the pipes indeed present very substantial water leakage. Three years ago, Générale des Eaux estimated the losses in Orient Bay at 60 cubic meters per hour and at 150 cubic meters per hour for the whole French side.

The consequences are immediate: Générale des Eaux has to purchase more water from the production plant (whose sales prices are high and have already been denounced by the territorial audit chamber) in order to be able to distribute the volume consumed. In the end, it’s the consumer who pays for this water which is lost in the porous pipes that have not been maintained.

Up until now, the ambiguity of the networks’ ownership - and therefore knowing whose responsibility it was to have the repairs done- had been used to launch potential repair projects. But the administrative court’s ruling in the case of the Orient Bay homeowners’ association is clear and allows the Collectivité to not be held liable. And most importantly, it allows it to be able to issue formal notices in order to force individuals to make repairs on the most damaged drinking water networks.