- In early April, the Scheldt Canal was affected by significant pollution. The dam of a factory failed, releasing 100,000 m3 of organic waste.
- State services recognize a delay in recognizing the scale of the ecological disaster.
" I did not know ". On the night of April 9 to 10, an industrial accident at the Tereos d'Escaudeuvre sugar refinery in the North caused significant pollution of the Escaut canal. An ecological disaster, the extent of which the State services have been slow to measure and which is today the subject of judicial and administrative inquiries. According to the regional prefect, Michel Lalande, several factors explain that, several days after the incident, he "did not know".
That April night, the dyke of a settling basin of the Tereos d'Escaudeuvre factory, near Valenciennes, broke. This resulted in the dumping of around 100,000 m3 of polluted organic matter in the Scheldt Canal. In the process, thousands of fish were found dead asphyxiated, not to mention the damage to other animal and plant species. What environmentalists have called "the biggest ecological incident in 20 years" did not happen to the prefect of the North until three days after the incident.
"The first information did not reach us until April 13"
This delay, the State representative attributes it to the Easter weekend and to confinement: “Due to the lack of walkers, joggers or fishermen due to confinement, the first information on the death of fish only reached us April 13, ”says Michel Lalande. Before that, "there was a civil security crisis but no ecological crisis", continues the prefect. The French Office for Biodiversity (OFB) had nevertheless noted, as of April 12, "a decline in the number of fish" in the Scheldt downstream of the factory.
The extent of the pollution will however be revealed very quickly. Thousands of dead fish were observed in the days following the tragedy in Valenciennes and in other municipalities along the Scheldt. On April 20, the pollution wave had reached Belgium without our neighbors having been notified by the French authorities. "Despite the importance of the volume of pollution, we had not imagined the consequences", recognizes the OFB. The Office assures that "the phenomenon of dilution which is normally observed has not occurred", without however explaining the reason.
"The surprise is the geographic impact which does not correspond to our standards", deplores the OFB. However, in August 2018, a Tereos sugar refinery in Aisne was the source of a similar incident. Between 20 and 30 m³ of organic matter had been discharged into an arm of the Oise. A much lower quantity which had however caused the death of thousands of fish up to 30 km downstream.
Administrative and judicial investigations are still underway and nothing should change before the fall. "To date, we still can not say that the excess fish mortality is due to this incident even if there is little doubt," said the prefect of the North. If Tereos' liability were demonstrated, the sanctions could be heavy. In addition to financial repairs, the manufacturer could have its operating license withdrawn from the offending site, which would amount to closing the factory with the resulting social consequences. "The law will be exercised with discernment because the sanction must be fair," tempers Michel Lalande.
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