The new dam will be the first of the works to be undertaken in 2003-2004. Designed to provide effective flushing of the Couesnon, year after year, the dam will release water on the ebb tide to clear sand from around the Mont.

The project submitted by groupement won the selection committee's approval for the way it intermeshes engineering, architectural and environmental considerations. The result of a thorough study of the site, it offers a tailored answer to the problem.
Elegant and unobtrusive, the new dam relies on proven, reliable techniques. Filling and emptying will be done by eight sector-sluices, each operated by two cylinders. .

It will blend in with the river banks and dykes. With the opening of the sluices and the changing water level, it will look different all the time, and almost disappear from view when the sluices are wide open.

A promontory over the water facing Mont St Michel, this marine balcony will be an ideal place from which to view the Mont and the Bay. People will come to watch the tides and the tidal bore arriving. They will see how the landscape is changed over time by this flushing action. And the sluices and dam machinery will certainly be an interesting feature in themselves.

The approaches are to be developed to enable visitors to watch this daily spectacle.

Project Management team: BRL Engineering Group / Luc Weizmann, architect / SPRETEC / ANTÉA / Bertrand Lanctuit, landscape specialist.