On April 25, 2022, the prefecture of Seine-Maritime approved the transformation of a former quarry in Mauny into a storage facility for inert waste [ISDI] from Ile-de-France.
However, access to the site is via the adjacent town of Bardouville.
And if the transport of waste is done by barges along the Seine, their transfer will be done by trucks and will cross the center of the Normandy municipality.
The association Les Pieds dans l'eau has sounded the mobilization against the project and sued the prefectural decree of authorization.
She also suspects the waste of being dangerous to human health, despite the denials of the prefectural authorities.
It's hard in Bardouville!
This small town in Seine-Maritime has been in turmoil since learning that a former quarry had asked to accommodate inert waste.
“In October 2021, we discovered a fluorescent panel in front of the Beaulieu quarry, says Nathalie Aubert, the president of the association Les Pieds dans l’eau, created in 2020 after the flooding by the Seine in the hamlet of Beaulieu.
It was a public consultation for an inert waste storage facility [ISDI] and the beginnings of our fight.
»
Because according to the activist, this ISDI poses several problems.
The first is linked to the location of the quarry, which ceased its activity in the 1990s. It is located in the neighboring town of Mauny but its entrance is via the town of Bardouville, at the level of the hamlet of Beaulieu.
“The quarry is 20-30 meters from the first houses of Bardouville while it is several hundred meters from the houses of Mauny, protests Dominique Rousseau, the mayor of the latter.
Local residents are directly affected and there is a school bus stop right next to the entrance to the quarry, but with trucks, that will be a problem.
»
Because trucks are the other facet of the problem related to localization.
According to the prefectural decree of April 25, 2022 authorizing ISDI on the site belonging to the Environment and Minerals Company (SEM), which did not respond to our requests, Ile-de-France waste will be "exclusively transported by barge" to an unloading dock located in the town of Anneville-Ambourville.
Rather a good thing, since it pollutes less and it's relatively quiet.
“A truck every two minutes!
»
On the other hand, it is after that that is spoiled since the waste will be transported by trucks.
And if the noria of heavy goods vehicles will avoid the inhabited center of Anneville-Ambourville, it will cross, and the center of Bardouville, and the hamlet of Beaulieu.
"On average, 120 trucks will cross the town per day", calculates Nathalie Aubert.
“A truck every two minutes!
», warns Dominique Rousseau.
To reduce nuisance, the prefecture has imposed certain rules: no more than five barges per month, the transit of each barge to the quarry will be done in two days on restricted schedules and no transfer on weekends and public holidays.
And Mauny in all this?
Well, not a truck.
Which has the gift of pissing off Dominique Rouseau.
"In Mauny, they are not affected at all but they will receive 120,000 euros to accommodate the waste", annoys the mayor of Bardouville.
He denies running after money but he does not understand why it is the most exposed to nuisance who are not compensated.
Differences in values
The other issue concerns the nature of the waste and is just as controversial.
According to the prefectural decree, the inert waste accepted is concrete, bricks, tiles and ceramics, earth and pebbles, each of these elements must be neither contaminated nor dangerous.
But the association Les Pieds dans l'eau is hardly reassured.
"In the hamlet of Beaulieu, we all have a fairly advanced environmental approach and even the arborist has gone organic," says Nathalie Haubert.
But are we certain that the stored waste will be non-hazardous?
Who controls?
His concern rose a notch when his association had land in the Ile-de-France region received at neighboring sites in Anneville-Ambourville and Yville-sur-Seine analyzed.
“It was amazing and frightening!
There was the presence of heavy metals well above the authorized levels, in particular arsenic, ”denounces the activist.
For the prefecture, these are “results of partial and non-definitive land analyzes, on which it is impossible to deploy scientific reasoning or to take measures”.
To support this criticism, the State services indicate that the values noted by the association are “values of metal content in the raw earth, and not values measured after leaching test”.
However, the legal rates are fixed after leaching.
And leaching designates the phenomenon of percolation of water through the soil.
If the latter are polluted, then the water entrains a part of these pollutants and that is,
The Grand Paris Express involved?
The affair gained momentum when it was suspected that the Bardouville quarry would receive spoil from the Société du Grand Paris (SGP), in charge of the construction of the Grand Paris Express.
The two sites of Yville and Anneville, where Les Pieds dans l'eau collected their soil sample, did receive spoil from the SGP sites, but the latter claims that it "has not been contacted by the SEM to obtain approval for receiving the Grand Paris Express rubble" and that it therefore "did not validate this site".
But a scalded cat fears cold water and Nathalie Haubert remains on her guard.
"When we went to see the prefecture, they answered us and I will always remember: 'Do you sincerely think that we have time to read all the files at the prefecture?'
And since then, we have been wary of everything, ”she says.
And her suspicions turn to the port of Gennevilliers (Hauts-de-Seine) where the waste from the Ile-de-France construction industry is grouped and where "they are all mixed up", she accuses.
A “nest of shit”
“Gennevilliers is a platform where we will massify the cuttings, explains Thomas Gaudron, responsible for the recovery of excavated soil at the SGP.
They arrive by trucks or small barges to be loaded onto 2,000 ton barges.
Only soils with similar characteristics are grouped together, the Environmental Code prohibiting mixtures.
"But we keep the traceability of our waste thanks to our T-Rex tool which identifies its origin on each batch of rubble, by whom it is transported, how much it weighs at departure and on arrival and its reception site, details the framework of the SGP.
On the other hand, we do not control what is added to our plots of land.
»
For Nathalie Haubert, even if “the SGP is certainly doing what is necessary”, the Gennevilliers site remains a “nest of shit”.
At the same time, the association last June challenged the prefectural decree establishing the ISDI.
“They are right, supports the mayor of Bardouville, who measures the limits of his powers as mayor.
We must not let ourselves go.
»
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