A detection campaign for lead poisoning has been carried out since last June around the former Metaleurop site.
Of the first 889 children tested, 7 are considered proven cases of lead poisoning and 61 others are on the threshold of vigilance.
Several schools in the municipalities bordering the site have lead levels in the soil above the permitted threshold.
Lead in the veins.
The closure of the Metaleurop factory in Noyelles-Godault in 2003 caused much ink to flow at the time.
Sacrificed on the altar of profitability, the lead and zinc smelter left hundreds of employees on the floor and soil pollution whose extent we had not yet measured.
Nineteen years later, if the social misery generated has been diluted over time, the lead has not disappeared, fixed in the blood of the inhabitants.
A recent screening campaign detected 7 cases of lead poisoning among the youngest neighbors of the former industrial site.
Last June,
20 Minutes
spoke of the new collective screening campaign for lead poisoning deployed in the 5 municipalities bordering the former foundry: Leforest, Evin-Malmaison, Courcelles-lès-Lens, Dourges and Noyelles-Godault.
The targets of this campaign, based on volunteering, were young people under the age of 18.
In four months, 889 children presented themselves for screening, or nearly 12% of the target population according to the Regional Health Agency (ARS).
The first results are edifying.
Seven confirmed cases and 61 others to watch
The regional health authority confirms 7 proven cases of children suffering from lead poisoning with a lead level in the blood greater than or equal to 50 µg/l (threshold for defining the disease).
They are 61 children with a blood lead level between 25 and 49.9µg/l, a range which corresponds to the “threshold of vigilance” and requires regular monitoring of the evolution over time.
The blood tests of the remaining 821 children show a presence of lead between less than 10 μg/l and 24.9 μg/l, knowing that the regional average is established, according to the ARS, at 14 μg/l.
How can such contamination rates be explained when the Suez group, charged by the public authorities with treating the site, was pleased with “successful depollution and sustainable conversion for the Metaleurop Nord site”?
In fact, if we are to believe the ARS, the link between these cases and Metaleurop is not necessarily systematic.
During the investigations carried out in the homes of the 7 children suffering from lead poisoning, “at least one other source of potential exposure to lead, linked to lifestyle or housing, was identified for three” of them.
Nevertheless, the soil analyzes carried out in ten establishments welcoming children (schools, nurseries, college) revealed the presence of lead at levels well above the permitted threshold for 5 of them.
This is enough to worry the prefect of Pas-de-Calais who strongly recommended "preventing access to uncovered floors" of several areas of the five schools concerned in Evin-Malmaison and Courcelles-lès-Lens.
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