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Origin and history

The siphon of Saint-Blaise is a key element of the Vesubie Canal, a 32 km aqueduct built between 1851 and 1885 to supply Nice with drinking water. Designed by engineer E. Delacroix and realized by the Compagnie Générale des Eaux, this canal combines tunnels and trenches, capturing water at Saint-Jean-la-Rivière (cote 271) to distribute it to Gairaut (cote 245). The project, supported by Joseph Durandy, was validated by Mac Mahon's Marshal in 1878, despite delays related to expropriations in 1883.

The canal, completed in 1885, allowed a major development of the Nice floriculture, although epidemics (cholera in 1887 and 1894, typhoid in 1898 and 1911) revealed deficiencies in the maintenance of the filter basins. In 1909, an ozonation treatment plant was built in Rimiez to purify water, marking a sanitary breakthrough. The siphon of Saint-Blaise, registered with the Historic Monuments in 2001, illustrates 19th-century hydraulic engineering, with its master bedrooms and its preserved pipes.

The origin of the project dates back to 1803, when Dr François-Emmanuel Foderé proposed to drift the waters of Vesubia towards Nice. After annexation of Nice County to France in 1860, water management became a public service, entrusted in 1869 to the Compagnie Générale des Eaux. The treaty signed between Mayor François Malausséna and representatives of the Company, Edward-Charles Blount and Baron Paul de Richemont, sealed this partnership. The canal, extended until Menton in 1892, remains a major testimony to the region's industrial and health history.

Breaks in the canal, such as those caused by landslides at Castagniers in 1959-1960, necessitated renovations, including the introduction of open-pit tunnel sections in 1991. Today, the Super Rimiez factory, successor to the 1909 plant, treats up to 150 000 m3 of water per day, perpetuating the technical heritage of the canal and its works, as the siphon of Saint-Blaise, symbol of the 19th century hydraulic innovation.

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