Extension du port du Legue (St Brieuc) étude d'impact sur l'environnement marin

The commercial port of the city of St-Brieuc currently has a limited capacity. It is only accessible for low-tonnage ships, and for this reason, cargo is not allowed, which is a contributing factor to its current traffic being limited to 450,000 tonnes per year. A significant silting-up of the port is diminishing even more its potential for accepting ships. Its future seems, therefore, threatened. Several studies conducted by the Côtes-du-Nord Chamber of Commerce and Industry have concluded that it is necessary to develop a port with greater capacity, which would stimulate the regional economy. Cargo traffic would then reach 1 million tonnes per year, and St-Brieuc would be accessible to heavier-tonnage coasters and would then follow the current growth of this category of ship. The enlargement project for Le Légué's port impacts commercial, fishing, and leisure business activities. It must be set up on a sandy foreshore northeast of the current port and must fit for the most part within a rectangle of 1.5 km by 0.75 km. A project of this size requires an impact study that includes a section concerning its impact on the environment. The Chamber of Commerce and Industry of the Côtes-du-Nord has entrusted the Centre National pour l'Exploitation des Océans with conducting this environmental impact study, the subject of this report. In view of the project's importance and the almost complete absence of baseline ecological studies of this area, it has been necessary to proceed with a rather extensive investigation. In this way, the field studies focused on the following aspects: hydrology, benthos, contaminants in the water, the sediment and living matter, Yffiniac marsh, flat fish nurseries. As regards the area studied, the scope of the study includes the foreshore of the bottom of St-Brieuc's bay subject to the tide, as well as the tributaries that flow into it. It has been extended to the Morieux inlet, located to the east of the project under consideration, which hosts developed mussel farming business activity. After introducing the scope of the study and the planned port extension, the body of the report is developed in the usual way: initial state, evolution before, then after the fitting-out, and overall appraisal of the impact on the environment.