A slackline against a high voltage electric line

An activist walk the 80m line. Un militant parcourt les 80m de slackline.
An activist walk the 80m line.
Un militant parcourt les 80m de slackline. Credit: Ulysse Lefebvre

The NoTHT05 activists climbed forth to draw public attention on an areal high power line project by installing and riding an illegal slackline between 2 electric pylons.

On November 27, in what used to be a typical Mountain Wilderness style of actions, twenty independent activists of the NoTHT05 group (the group identifier meaning “No to the Very High Voltage Line in the (05) High Alps- department, Fr) came together,  near Puy Saint Eusèbe to install and ride a slackline as a way to protest against the installation of a high power aerial line

Their goal was to raise public awareness of what they consider to be an unnecessary and costly project for the taxpayers and the environment.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The members of the NoTHT05 group emphasizes that even if the pylons of the future dual very high voltage line (THT) (2×225,000 volt) are almost all mounted and the all the trees cut off, they still want to bring forth to the public attention the aberration of such a project. “For the people to know and as a counter-example to be used in future projects, should some regions in the future have to fight against such aberrations” explains a member of the group.

Lionel Daudet, a member of the team provided a short list of activities impacted by the project:

  • 5 paragliding take-off areas,
  • thirty ski touring routes where people will have to ride immersed in the THT lines’ electromagnetic fields
  • 5 climbing sites where it will be necessary not to hang too much around the climbing tracks to avoid a long exposure to the strong magnetic field and its accompanying crackling,
  • the GR50 where hikers will have to cross under the THT lines 16 times.

On the 80 m long slackline at 40m high, they walked a few moments in the Embrunais blue sky with the Serre-Ponçon lake in the background. A brief moment of poetry amidst a landscape marked with warts. Is it the last remaining thing pounding on the deaf ear of most local elected officials and the state?

 

The NoTHT05 website is full of various types documents official or not, explaining the project and its consequences.

Original text and images by Ulysse Lefebvre in Montagne Magazine

(BM)