According to the Minister of Health, Agnès Buzyn, dioxin levels "greater than normal" were recorded on the day of the fire Lubrizol plant near Rouen, but they are "below the thresholds of toxicity ".

Dioxin levels "greater than normal" but "below the thresholds of toxicity" were recorded the day of the fire Lubrizol plant 15 km from Rouen, said Wednesday the Minister of Health, Agnès Buzyn. "We will see if these figures are found on several samples in the long term since it is a levy at the time of the fire," said Ms. Buzyn on France Info. She was questioned about dioxin levels four times higher than normal recorded in the town of Préaux (north-east of Rouen), by the organization Atmo Normandy.

"It's more important than normal but it's still (...) below the accepted thresholds for toxicity," commented Ms. Buzyn. In a tonnage filed from Thursday, September 26, the day of the fire, at noon to Friday the 27th at noon, the association found a deposit of 12.6 picograms per square meter, in toxic equivalent, of dioxin, while it finds in his usual sampling in Normandy, mainly around the incinerators, 3.4 picograms per m2 per day on average, has explained to Christophe Legrand AFP, its deputy director. "The value of Préaux is a rather high deposit (...) It's not alarming but it's unusual," commented Mr. Legrand. "There's no reason it's not going to be normal because there's no more panache," he added, "or there's another source elsewhere but dioxins in general it comes from combustions not mastered with a black plume "like that produced by the Lubrizol fire.

The minimum historical value found in the region (out of 228 samples) is 0.23 minimum and the maximum value 31, said the deputy director of the association controlled for a quarter by the state, a quarter by the communities, a quarter by industrialists, a quarter by environmental or consumer organizations.

Only the repeated and prolonged consumption of contaminated products dangerous to health according to the ARS

This dioxin deposit in the Atmo gauge comes from the air but means that a similar deposit has occurred on the ground there, according to Atmo. Préaux is one of 112 communes in the department where the prefect has forbidden farmers to sell their produce. According to the Regional Health Agency (ARS), only the "repeated and prolonged consumption" of products contaminated with dioxins is dangerous for health.

"We are going to Rouen with (the Minister of Agriculture) Didier Guillaume and (the Minister of Ecological Transition) Elisabeth Borne at the end of the week, so as to install the monitoring committee (...) where all results we have available will be made public and clearly explained, "Buzyn continued. According to her, "there will be (...) a complete picture of the situation at this point with the monitoring committee, which includes elected representatives, citizens, experts, non-governmental associations".

Health agencies are now in charge of "assessing the health risk for the populations" on the basis of "all the levies we will have," explained the minister.
On Thursday, September 26th, a huge fire destroyed 5,253 tonnes of chemicals at Lubrizol, a Seveso high-threshold company. The fire also affected three warehouses of its neighbor Normandie Logistique which stored more than 9,000 tons of products on its site.