The Belgian region of Wallonia has estimated tens of thousands of tonnes of dead fish. France is accused by Belgium of "negligence" for having failed to alert about serious river pollution qualified as "environmental disaster".
A site of the French sugar group Tereos is at the origin of this pollution which concerns the Scheldt, river crossing France, Belgium and the Netherlands.
The alert launched by a local resident
In a press release, Wallonia, a region bordering France, regrets that a pollution incident on April 9 near Cambrai was "never reported by France to the Belgian authorities", in violation of an international alert procedure . It was not until April 20 to receive the alert from a Belgian resident of the Scheldt worried about "the abnormally high presence of dead fish on the surface of the river", he added.
According to the press release, "Wallonia, for its part, immediately warned Flanders [another downstream Belgian region] and the Netherlands of the impending pollution". France is now invited to "clarify this negligence".
Complaint filed "by the weekend"
A total of 100,000 m3 of blackish liquid, mainly organic matter, was spilled into the wild, as a result of the rupture of a dyke at the Tereos factory in Thun-Saint-Martin (North) which was holding beet wash water . According to the French Office for Biodiversity, these washing waters have "quickly saturated the aquatic environment". By degrading in water, these organic materials consume the oxygen present and "suffocate all the organisms living nearby".
A complaint will be sent to the French authorities "by the end of the week," said a spokesperson for the Walloon region, Nicolas Yernaux. The “polluter pays” principle could result in a fine of up to one million euros for Tereos “and this only in Wallonia”, depending on the region. For its part, the Cambrai prosecutor's office said it had opened a judicial investigation to determine precisely the consequences of the breakage of the dike.
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