Since early August, huge silver tanker trucks have been paying a visit to the town of Sainte-Marie-aux-Mines in Alsace, eastern France, twice a week. They aren't delivering heating oil or milk, but drinking water from the nearby town of Liepvre. Sainte-Marie, with its population of 5,000, is located in a green valley in the Vosges Mountains and usually relies on about 20 mountain springs for its water.
But the flow rate has fallen after weeks of intense heat and drought. Liepvre, just a few kilometers away, is connected to a larger water supply network that extends toward the Alsatian plain. Here, there is still enough water despite the drought but because there is no permanent connection between the two systems, tanker trucks are effectively functioning as a water pipeline on wheels.
According to the French government, more than 40,000 people have been affected by water cutoffs or supply disruptions this month, and 550,000 are at higher risk of losing stable access. The drought has affected large parts of France and water restrictions have been put in place in many regions, but tanker trucks are only being used in certain areas. This depends on what sources or groundwater reserves a municipality relies on for water and whether it can easily switch to other resources.
More than a dozen municipalities in the Jura Mountains, further to the south in the department of Doubs, are also currently being supplied by tanker trucks. This situation is not new for France. In the summer of 2022, which was also exceptionally dry, tanker trucks were used to supply hundreds of municipalities with water.
Others depended on bottled water. Coucouron, a village in the Massif Central region of southern France with just under 800 residents, was severely affected. Though it's located at a height of more than 1,000 meters (3,280 feet) in a region rich in water and where three major French rivers — the Loire, the Allier and the Ardeche, have their sources — an important spring ran dry after months of drought.
Tanker trucks had to bring water to the villagers for months. But drought wasn't the only reason for these problems. Experts discovered that there were several major leaks in the water supply network.
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