The Minister of Ecological Transition Elisabeth Borne presented on Tuesday the government's action plan for the prevention and management of industrial risks. A feedback that comes almost five months after the fire at the Lubrizol sites, a classified Seveso factory located in Rouen, where several thousand tonnes of chemicals had burned and a plume of black smoke 70 kilometers long had formed.
The Minister announced that the annual inspections of classified sites will increase by 50% by 2022. An increase in possible controls thanks in particular to a reduction in the administrative tasks that must be carried out by inspectors, to the detriment of field work.
"Targeted controls on Seveso sites"
According to the authorities, 18,000 inspections were carried out in 2018 on the approximately 500,000 “classified environmental protection installations” (ICPE), including some 1,300 Seveso sites presenting major risks. A total that has however fallen by 40% in recent years.
In addition, "there will be targeted controls on Seveso sites and we are expanding the scope taking into account the entire environment of these sites", in particular to avoid "domino effects", she said.
Creation of an "independent accident investigation office"
The Minister also announced the creation of an "independent accident investigation office" to "learn all the lessons of the most important industrial accidents". Composed of inspectors "familiar" with the sector and therefore "immediately operational", "it will not be able to receive instructions from anyone, including for the transmission of results," assured the minister at a press conference.
The action plan also provides for measures that will be imposed on manufacturers. The government wants the Seveso so-called “high threshold” sites, the most dangerous, to be obliged to carry out an annual exercise to implement their emergency plan in the event of a disaster, while the other classified sites will remain on one exercise every three years.
Faster, clearer
While the list of products present on the scene of the fire in Rouen had taken time to be published, "we are going to change the regulations and ask manufacturers to keep files with the nature and quantity of products constantly up to date stored on their site, "also promises the minister. In the event of a fire, "manufacturers must provide us with the list of products concerned in clear terms, immediately", and also have drawn up a list of pollutants that can be released in the event of an incident, she said.
"I think that the industrialists are well aware that this is an issue of acceptability by the populations," stressed the Minister, for whom "the government wants to preserve the industry (in France) which imposes on us to be transparent enough. " In addition, a second set of measures relating to "crisis management", and in particular public information, will be presented "before the summer", confirmed the Minister.
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- Pollution
- Fire
- Environment
- Lubrizol
- Elisabeth Borne