Alpine Industrial Landscapes Transformation - Project Handbook

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figure 1: Overview of the Pechiney site, along the Durance and towards the
town centre of L'Argentière (in the background)
Location and regional profile
The L'Argentière-la Bessée brownfield pilot site is located in
the upstream part of the upper Durance valley. This narrow
valley is located in the high mountain sector of the Provence-
Alpes-Côte d´Azur (PACA) Region, in FR821 according to the
Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics (NUTS) and at
the northern end of the Department of Hautes-Alpes, close to
the Italian border.
The Durance River is a historic traffic corridor between the
Marseilles metropolitan region / Provence, and the Piedmont
and French Alpine regions. The southern part of this axis
crosses over 200 kilometres of the Provence Pre-Alps, a very
sparsely populated rural area. The upper Durance valley is
its upstream mountainous section. It rises along nearly 50
kilometres between Embrun (6.857 inhabitants) and Briançon
(16.355 inhabitants) and gives access to mountain passes
linking Turin and Grenoble conurbations. The only national
road that serves the valley is subject to intense traffic causing
nuisance and frequent traffic jams. Marseille and its airport
are about 3 hours' drive from L’Argentière-la Bessée, Turin
and its airport are 2 hours away and Grenoble is 2 and a half
hours away. Main roads leading to Turin and Marseilles are
located 1 hour from this town.
The department of Hautes-Alpes (5.500 square kilometres),
more than 80% covered by forests and mountains, is a very
sparsely populated rural area, with 141.000 inhabitants and a
density of 23 inhabitants/square kilometres. It has very little
heavy industry. The upper Durance Valley is one of the French
Alpine valleys which experienced very significant industrial
developments between the beginning of the 20th century,
when "white coal" was discovered, and the 1970s/1980s.
This southern part of the Alps, where some of the highest
Alpine peaks culminate, is today a touristic region whose
attractiveness is based on numerous ski resorts, vast protected
natural mountain areas framing the valley (Ecrins National
Park and Queyras Regional Natural Park) and the large
artificial lake of Serre-Ponçon which holds the waters of the
Durance below Embrun. The region enjoys a Mediterranean
climate.
The Upper Durance Valley sector has about 40.000 inhabitants
(42 communes). Its two population centres are Briançon
and Embrun. Gap is located one hour downstream. Each of
these small agglomerations is largely autonomous due to the
strong presence of services catering to the tourist economy.
L’Argentière-la Bessée (2.398 inhabitants) is the principle town
of the Pays des Ecrins community of communes (CCPE) (6.904
inhabitants) which includes 7 more villages. This northern
part of the department has been experiencing continued
demographic growth since the 1980s, fuelled by the arrival
of often retired households attracted by the quality of life in
these mountains.
Pilot site: Péchiney former industrial site / "Les Sablonnières"
activities zone
This brownfield site was once from the Péchiney aluminium
plant created at the beginning of the 20th century.
L’Argentière-la Bessée was created at that time to house the
employees. This town is situated in a slight widening of the
valley, on the banks of the Durance, at an altitude of about
970 metres and is dominated by high wooded slopes rising
to over 2.500 metres. Another electrometallurgical industrial
site, for calcium metal production, which is also currently a
brownfield site (MGI brownfield), is located near the village of
La Roche de Rame.
The first hydroelectric power station was built in 1907 and
aluminium production started in 1910. The site expanded
gradually and was taken over by the Péchiney company
in 1945. In the 1970s and early 1980s the difficulties in