A passer-by watches the smoke rise from a building of the SAIPOL company (Avril group) classified SEVESO, affected by a fire, in Grand-Couronne, near Rouen, in northern France, March 13, 2020. -
Lou BENOIST / AFP
On September 26, 2019, at around 2:40 a.m. and for twelve hours, more than 9,500 tonnes of chemicals, as well as fiber cement roofs containing asbestos, burned down at the Lubrizol and Normandie Logistique industrial sites in Rouen.
"An extraordinary event", recalled this Thursday again Barbara Pompili, Minister of Ecology.
Will it serve as an electric shock, like the explosion of the AZF factory in the past?
The Minister announced a series of measures aimed at strengthening the management of industrial risks in France, notably with the creation of an accident investigation office.
But beyond the regulations, there is the question of their application.
Undoubtedly, the fire in Lubrizol on September 26, 2019, marked the spirits.
By its duration (12 hours), by the quantity of chemicals that burned (9,500 tons), by the magnitude of the smoke plume generated (22 km long and 6 wide).
"You have experienced an extraordinary event", agreed this Thursday again, Barbara Pompili, Minister of Ecological Transition, addressing the victims during a trip to Rouen with the Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin .
Nevertheless, "the Lubrizol fire is just one industrial accident among many others that occur every year in France", insists Paul Poulain, specialist in fire safety and in the control of industrial risks and president of the Group. research companies in safety and prevention against fire risks (Geepsi).
"Pollution, fires, explosions ... There were 1,098 in 2019 alone, or three per day," he continues.
And we are only talking here about incidents declared in the prefecture.
Others go completely under the radar.
"
Time to learn the lessons?
Of course, this figure should be brought down to the 500,000 installations classified for the protection of the environment (ICPE) in France.
Factories, farms, warehouses classified as such because they present the risk of fire, explosion or pollution.
However, for Paul Poulain, this frequency of accidents says a lot about the way we manage industrial risk in France, especially since incidents do not spare the Seveso -1,312 sites in France, including 705 at the high threshold. - presenting major risks of accidents and requiring to maintain a high level of prevention.
Among these 705 sites, Lubrizol Rouen, precisely ...
Will the fire of September 26 then serve as an electric shock?
This is the wish of the Unitary Collective Lubrizol, which brings together associations, unions, political parties and victims of the fire in Rouen, as well as that of Paul Poulain, host of the platform "Notre Maison Brûle", who invites demonstrations on Saturday in front of Seveso sites for better consideration of industrial hazards in France.
This is also the wish displayed by Barbara Pompili.
"After the time of emergency and crisis management, it is time to learn all the lessons, this is also how our country is moving forward," said the Minister on Thursday, by way of introduction , before removing a series of measures.
An accident investigation office, as in aviation
The main one is the creation of an accident investigation office (BEA) dedicated to industrial risks, as it already exists in civil aviation.
Already mentioned by Elisabeth Borne last February, it was confirmed this Thursday by Barbara Pompili.
The office will even be operational from next month.
This specialized and independent structure will be responsible for carrying out technical investigations into the main industrial accidents, to determine their causes and formulate recommendations to companies and the administration to prevent it from happening again.
This was one of the improvements desired by the Senate committee that investigated the Lubrizol fire.
"A good step forward", also judges Paul Poulain.
With the limit, all the same, that this BEA intervenes after the fact, once the accident has occurred, he specifies.
An invitation to act upstream, in industrial risk management.
On this aspect, Barbara Pompili made several announcements.
One of the challenges is in particular to avoid the “domino effect”, in other words the propagation of a fire between neighboring industrial sites.
All the more problematic when the neighbor is a Seveso site.
This is potentially what happened on September 26 in Rouen.
"We have not only drastically strengthened the applicable regulations for the storage of hazardous materials, but we will now also systematically inspect all ICPEs within a radius of 100 meters around Seveso sites", announces the Minister.
"The challenge of enforcing regulations in the field"
Industrialists are also called upon to increase the extinguishing capacities made available to firefighters on their site, or to identify precisely all the substances that could be emitted during an accident affecting their sites.
Two lessons drawn, again, from the fire in Lubrizol.
"We took several days and had to do it several times for manufacturers to give us the precise list of products that burned on their sites", recalls Pierre-André Durand, Prefect of Seine-Maritime, joined by
20 Minutes
last week.
Once again, for Paul Poulain, these announcements are going in the right direction, "on condition that we ensure that they are really applied in the field".
This is what is at stake today for the president of Geepsi: "of the 500,000 ICPEs, only 41,000 are subject to specific regulations and inspections," he says.
And even of these 41,000, the number of inspections is insufficient.
Before AZF, we were at 13,000 inspections per year.
In 2005, we went to 30,000, before gradually dropping down to 18,000 in 2018. ”
4⃣ With a 50% increase in controls, there will still be fewer inspections in France than in 2007. To check the compliance of the 500,000 ICPEs in 5 years, we would have to go from 1,600 inspectors today to 9,000 We are very far from the mark.
- Our House Burns (@NotrMaisonBrule) September 24, 2020
5⃣ The regulations are tightened up but there is still no way to ensure that they are respected.
Companies that do not comply with the regulations will still not be financially sanctioned.
- Our House Burns (@NotrMaisonBrule) September 24, 2020
This Thursday, Barbara Pompili reiterated the goal of increasing annual inspections of ICPEs by 50% by 2022, as Elisabeth Borne announced in February.
“But initially, the former Minister of Ecological Transition did not correlate this increase in inspections with a trend in the same direction in the number of agents in charge of these controls, which did not seem serious to us. , raises Hervé Mauray, senator (Union centiste) of the Eure and president of the commission of inquiry of the Senate on the fire of Lubrizol.
On June 30, she [Elisabeth Borne] announced that she would create 50 inspector positions in 2021. We will be vigilant to ensure that these announcements are found in the next finance law.
" Wasted effort.
Barbara Pompili said this Thursday, during a meeting with elected officials, that these creations would take place by the end of the five-year term and not in 2021.
Create the equivalent of ASN for industrial risks?
The minister did not go back on the possibility of creating an independent administrative authority (AAI), responsible for controlling the Seveso sites in France.
The equivalent already exists in the nuclear industry with the Nuclear Safety Authority (ASN) - often nicknamed the “French nuclear gendarme” -, they argue.
The interest of this AAI would be “to be an independent structure when the Seveso sites are today inspected by inspectors from the Regional Directorate for the Environment, Planning and Housing (Dreal) placed under the authority of the prefect, explains Paul Poulain.
However, the latter must often arbitrate between the protection of the population and the economic development of its territory, which are sometimes antagonistic.
"
This new body is not favored by the Senate commission of inquiry.
"We would create an additional layer when we are already suffering from a multiplication of stakeholders on the issue of industrial risk," Hervé Mauray justifies.
It is better to rely on existing structures by strengthening their human and financial resources.
"
It remains ardently desired by the Collectif Unitaire Lubrizol as well as by Nicolas Mayer-Rossignol, the mayor of Rouen.
Paul Poulain does not abandon the idea in any case: "I am currently working with deputies to help them present a bill in this direction," he announced.
Planet
Lubrizol fire: "Everyone has something to say about September 26" ... A year later, the fear has not left the people of Rouen
Planet
Lubrizol fire: "There is no political will to clarify this matter", denounces the lawyer Julia Massardier
A new alert system for the population soon in service
This is another major shortcoming revealed by the Lubrizol fire: the weakness of the population's warning systems during an industrial accident and, more generally, the absence of a risk culture in France.
Pierre-André Durand, Prefect of Seine-Maritime, has sometimes been criticized for not having triggered a siren to warn the population of the ongoing fire.
“When you have a disaster in the middle of the night, you don't ring the sirens.
People do not know the meaning ”, he justifies, calling for the development of new technologies such as“ cell broadcast ”, an alert system on mobile phones already used in many countries to warn residents in emergency.
This Thursday, in Rouen, Gérald Darmanin indeed announced the deployment of a new alert system based on cell broadcasting and the sending of geolocated SMS.
It "will allow the massive and rapid sending of priority messages over traditional communications", describes the executive.
"Even when the phone is on silent, it will ring," said the Minister of the Interior.
This system will be deployed between July 2021 and June 2022 and 50 million euros have been budgeted for this new service, specifies the minister.
In addition to the alert system, the government is adding the “systematic” publication by 2022 of “results of inspections of classified installations”, as is already the case for inspections of nuclear sites.
And "the expert reports of insurers" will "be made available to the inspection of classified installations", explained Barbara Pompili.
Environment
Lubrizol
Rouen
Seveso
Planet
Industry