On the 10th December 2004 unusually high levels of insecticide poisons were discovered in the waters of the Canelet at Port-la-Nouvelle. On the 13th the Prefecture of the Aude placed a ban on all fishing between Port-la-Nouvelle and Sigean, on the 7th January the ban was extended to the entire Bages Sigean etang as signs of the insecticide were detected throughout the whole etang. As a result of legal action by the 33 professionals who rely on fishing the etang, lead by their President Dominique Blanchard, won an advance of 3,000 euro each from Soft, the agrochemical plant at Port-la-Nouvelle, for compensation for loss of revenue. On the 14th March the Prefecture reopened the etangs to fishing.

This is not the first time Soft has been at the centre of a pollution scandal, in the 1980's a major spill of similar chemicals lead to a long closure of the etang.

Now the fishing profession has combined with Pitch Bloch, President of the ecologists group Eccla, and with the tacit support of Council of the Parc naturel de la Narbonnaise to have the factory closed. "18 accidents in 20 years and now this, hardly what we had been praying Father Christmas would give us this year", said Dominique Blanchard, "This factory has to go".

The Prefecture and the mayors of the local area are not so fast to make judgment, Soft is a major employer in the Aude, the recent closure of the Formica plant in the high Aude valley has thrown into stark relief the issue of large scale unemployment in the Aude. With only two companies employing more than 300 workers left in the Aude the pressure to close one the remaining plants is being resisted strongly by the CGT union. "We are equally concerned about safety at the plant, it is our members who work in these conditions" said a spokeswoman for the Union, "The issue is to clean up the plant, not close it."

The etangs of the Languedoc are under pressure all along our coast, the Bassin de Thau has been closed repeatedly, because of the high levels of pesticides used by the vingerons, the increased levels of pollution caused by seaside development and the chemicals used by the oyster farmers themselves. Further down the coast in Roussillon the pressure on continual tourist development is also having a major impact on the etangs. It is urgent that at a Prefectoral and Regional level the civil servants and the politicians develop a plan for sustainable development for the Languedoc coast. The future role of the agrochemical plants at Port-la-Nouvelle and Sete need to be included in that plan, as does the on-going massive tourist developments being thrown up along the coast, and the use of pesticides by the wine industry. Soft is the most visible target for the ecologists but closing the plant will not remove the longer term problem of over development and an agriculture still dominated by bulk production.