The role of the regional environment department is to monitor and control factories or warehouses considered to be at risk.
A wave of specific inspections was launched after the accidents at Lubrizol, near Rouen, and in a sugar factory in the North.
Around a quarter of the inspections gave rise to formal notices for the companies concerned.
No risk does not exist.
Nevertheless, there are industrial sites where, in view of the consequences, it is preferable for it to be minimized as much as possible.
It is the role of the regional directorate of the Environment (Dreal) to monitor and control these factories or warehouses in order to prevent the least risks.
Thus, these prefectural services were required to launch specific inspections on certain sites after two accidents: the fire at the Lubrizol plant, near Rouen, in September 2019 and the episode of aquatic pollution linked to a rupture of the sea wall. the Tereos sugar refinery, in Escaudeuvres, near Cambrai, in April 2020.
"Worrying" situation
“A post-Lubrizol action plan has been carried out,” points out Laurent Tapadinhas, director of Dreal.
We carried out eleven inspections relating to the retention of dangerous products at risk sites.
During the accident, it appeared that one of the causes of the rapid spread of the fire was the configuration of the storage retention.
"
However, of the eleven sites inspected, three were the subject of a formal notice for lack of compliance with the regulations in force.
A "worrying" situation, for Dreal.
Especially since Laurent Courapied, head of the chronic risk department, lists 18 accidents on Seveso sites (at very high risk) in 2020 in Hauts-de-France.
Most of them are also fires, without death to be deplored, fortunately.
“These are often fires on waste treatment facilities,” he notes.
During preventive checks, in one in five cases, we discover inadequacies in the means of fire fighting or failure in the fire detection.
"
Risks of aquatic pollution
As for the risks of aquatic pollution, the companies concerned are not doing much better.
The Tereos episode only reminded us of this.
During the night of April 9 to 10, 2020, in full confinement, the rupture of a dike at the sugar refinery polluted the Escaut river as far as Belgium.
Since then, 19 hydraulic structures have been inspected.
With, once again, unpleasant surprises.
The Tereos d'Escaudœuvres plant has received an emergency measure order.
Three other orders of formal notice were drawn up - all in the Somme - for the food factory of Lunor, in Chaulnes, and for the Cristal Union sugar factories, in Villers Faucon, and Saint-Louis, in Eppeville.
"There is frequently a lack of maintenance and sometimes persistent exceeding of the maximum water levels defined", deplores the Dreal.
"We are going to be more coercive at the end of the year and in 2022," indicates Laurent Tapadinhas, "with more monitoring obligations for the twenty or so manufacturers concerned.
"
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