• The residents of the waste storage center, on fire in Saint-Chamas since December 26, all describe the same symptoms in contact with the fumes.

  • The night, especially, is difficult, when the wind drops and the ground cools.

  • Several complaints are in progress, but the urgency, for these inhabitants, is above all that the fire be stopped.

“It fits, there is nothing to do.

Although Georges Mélanie closed the windows and blocked the air vents with tape, he felt the smoke from the Saint-Chamas fire.

Outside, he often puts on two masks to protect himself.

The land of his house, where his earthmoving operation is also located, is barely 200 meters from the waste storage center, which has been on fire since December 26.

“The most terrible is the night, he says this Friday, seated in the living room from where we have a view of all the surroundings.

You have the humidity, and right now a lot of frost, it feels like the air is pressing against the earth, you can really smell the chemical smells.

The itchy eyes, the burning throat prevent him from sleeping.

Several times, he gets up to drink Pulco to try to calm his bronchial tubes.

Under his massive hand, a prescription is placed on the tablecloth.

It is dated today: a doctor prescribes a chest scan.

It is written in parentheses: “chemical cough”.

Wet mops under the door

“Why are the firefighters not there”, does not take off this inhabitant, while several complaints are in progress against the operator of the site, including one filed Thursday from France Nature Environnement.

“Money doesn't interest me, what I'm asking is that the fire be stopped, that there's no more smoke, that's all.

Afterwards, the waste, they don't bother me, there are hectares of land.

»

Plumber and heating engineer, Patrick Portelli lives even closer to the site, right next to the railway.

He also puts wet mops under the front door: his house is older.

The tight throat, the headaches, he suffers them too.

“Today, there is the mistral, it's pretty good, but at night, when the wind drops, it's unbreathable, he explains.

All night, it's full London!

“We know very well that these fumes are toxic,” he adds.

When you go to AtmoSud, there are scary pollution peaks, and even then, they don't put all the measures of toxic products.

The sensors installed in the sector from December 30 again measured threshold overruns this week.

A petition launched

He too remains incredulous at the time taken to put out the fire. “It's amazing that it takes more than a month, he says. We were told that we shouldn't water too much so as not to pollute the Touloubre, but the water tables here are already polluted, we are around the Etang de Berre, and they will be with the next rains! And to think that there are children playing outside in the schoolyards. Me, the fumes, I smelled them as far as Vitrolles, where I was for work. The town hall offered him to finance temporary relocation but, like his neighbour, he refused: "It's also my place of work, we have three dogs, the grandfather who is 87 years old and who lives in a house below, we can't leave like that. »

At the unmissable Bistrot de Provence, on the main square of the village, the country party is in full swing. Michelle, 76, doesn't look more worried than that, although the fumes she could see from the top of the hill opposite the site. "We still open the windows for the Covid," she said. Near the bar, the petition from the Cistude collective is available to signatories, more and more of them, according to Jean-Luc Platon, one of these initiators: "We are asking the prefect to appoint a laboratory to take core samples to have an exhaustive expertise of the pollution in progress and the carbonized waste, before these are evacuated. »

According to him, there are solutions to stop the fire.

And in any case, there is urgency.

"We're fed up," he says.

And if the company was located in the southern districts of Marseille, what do you think would happen?

»

Planet

Bouches-du-Rhône: An industrial fire has been polluting the air of a village for more than a week

Planet

Bouches-du-Rhône: How industrial risks around the Etang de Berre are scrutinized

  • Planet

  • Air pollution

  • Marseilles

  • Environment

  • Fire

  • Waste

  • Berre-l'Etang

  • 0 comment

  • 0 share

    • Share on Messenger

    • Share on Facebook

    • Share on Twitter

    • Share on Flipboard

    • Share on Pinterest

    • Share on Linkedin

    • Send by Mail

  • To safeguard

  • A fault ?

  • To print