Two environmental organizations, France Nature Environment and Sepanso, denounce Monday a vast pollution with petrochemical detergents in the Bay of Biscay. They call for their ban on the leaders of the G7 to be held from 24 to 26 August in Biarritz.
"Turn your eyes towards the Bay of Biscay"
It will be "a G7 with a view of .. a dying ocean," said in a statement the two associations. Sepanso and FNE urge the heads of state expected in Biarritz to "turn their eyes towards the Bay of Biscay", 223,000 km2 located in the North Atlantic between Brittany and the Cantabrian Coast, in the north of Spain, also polluted by "fertilizers and pesticides". "Unlike an oil spill, the chemical pollution causing the problem is invisible," they explain, but "the spray loaded with these pollutants have a stripping effect on certain plants such as maritime pines."
"Learn"
The analyzes of moss samples taken by Sepanso, from Biscarrosse, in the Landes, to the Basque Coast, "confirm this pollution", but "this chemical cocktail is still not taken into account in the measurement of water quality. bathing, "says the association. "The G7 must take the withdrawal from the market of petrochemical detergents, as has just been done for some plastics.It is a measure of common sense if we do not want dead zones to multiply in our oceans! The situation in the Bay of Biscay should allow us to draw lessons, "said Georges Cingal, secretary general of the Sepanso Aquitaine federation.