On November 30, 2023, the Versailles Administrative Court of Appeal (CAA de Versailles) rejected an application by individuals and companies for the annulment of a prefectoral decree declaring to be in the public interest a groundwater diversion project and the protection perimeters of the "La source de Bougis" communal catchment in the commune of Courtenay.

On September 12, 2016, the municipal council of Courtenay (a commune of 4,000 inhabitants), applied for authorization to draw drinking water from the borehole "La source de Bougis". It also applied for a declaration of public utility for works to divert groundwater from the borehole and establish protection perimeters. On December 5, 2018, in an inter-prefectoral decree, the prefects of Loiret and L'Yonne responded to this request by declaring the said diversion works to be in the public interest, and then authorizing the withdrawal of water from the borehole for human consumption on these terms.

In accordance with articles L. 1321-2 and R. 1321-13 of the French Public Health Code, the declaration of public utility "determines a protection perimeter around the extraction point [...] within which any kind of installation, work, activity, deposit, work, development or land use likely to directly or indirectly harm water quality [...] may be prohibited or regulated". In this case, agricultural activities are restricted within the protection perimeter, which encroaches on the applicants' private property.

The B. consorts lodged an administrative appeal with the Loiret Prefect and the Minister of Solidarity and Health, which was rejected by two decisions dated April 3 and 11, 2019. Joined by other individuals and companies, Mr. B et al. appealed to the Orléans Administrative Court to have the inter-prefectoral decree annulled. The application having been rejected by the Tribunal on July 12, 2021, the applicants appealed.

The CAA de Versailles rejected their request. In particular, it held that the purpose of the decree in question was to protect Courtenay's drinking water resources from external pollution, and that the diversion project was therefore in the public interest. The decision to establish and extend a protection perimeter around the drinking water source borehole was justified by the report of an approved hydrogeologist, who noted that the Bougis catchment "suffers from diffuse pollution and that the water, of mediocre quality, and frequently exceeds the maximum authorized concentrations for turbidity, pesticides and nitrates".

As the Bougis catchment is particularly vulnerable to external pollution due to its specific hydrogeological characteristics, "it does not appear from the documents in the file that, by imposing measures on this perimeter to prevent pollution risks, linked in particular to agricultural activity, the prefects would have enacted easements that would be unnecessary or inappropriate for the purposes for which they were instituted".

The decision of the court of first instance is confirmed and the inter-prefectoral decree is upheld.