Non-collective sanitation techniques and management - The skills of a SPANC

The NOTRe law, an acronym for "New Territorial Organization of the Republic", was enacted in August 2015. Its main aim is to redefine the competences of France's various territorial authorities, "in order to clarify responsibilities and promote a better distribution of powers".

As part of this legislation, a number of powers have been or are still to be transferred from communes to inter-municipalities. One of these is the transfer of non-collective sanitation responsibilities.

Prior to the NOTRe law, non-collective sanitation was generally the responsibility of the communes. Following the implementation of this law, this competence is to be transferred to intercommunalités, also known as Établissements publics de coopération intercommunale (EPCI).

It was initially planned that competences relating to water and sanitation, including Non-Collective Sanitation (ANC), would be transferred from the communes to the communities of communes by 1 ^er January 2020. However, following the law of August 3, 2018, this transfer could be postponed until 1 ^er January 2026, subject to certain conditions that we will not detail here.

As a result, since the enactment of the NOTRe law, more and more inter-municipalities have been entrusted with the management of non-collective sanitation on their territory.

In this new update to our article, we'll be referring to "collectivités" rather than "communes" or "municipalités" to designate the body responsible for managing non-collective sanitation when we talk about current situations (2023).

On the other hand, the mayor's police powers, which can be invoked to put an end to nuisances generated by a sewage treatment plant, with the possible use of coercive measures such as a formal notice or the carrying out of work at the owner's expense, fall solely within the mayor's remit and cannot be transferred to an ECPI. This has certain consequences, which we will analyze in this article.