Lead everywhere: in the school, the stadium, the vegetables. Children’s hair. Two decades after the closure of the Metaleurop foundry in Pas-de-Calais, the “worrying” results of a journalistic investigation into land pollution were presented to residents on Friday.
For decades, the plant released tons of heavy metals, including lead and cadmium, into the air. When it closed in 2003, the area, covering 700 hectares, was considered the most polluted in France.
Families live there, in Noyelles-Godault and Courcelles-lès-Lens, where the foundry was located, but also in Evin-Malmaison, which is particularly polluted.
It is in this mining town, the poorest in the area, that a team from the investigative program “Vert de rage”, on France 5, took samples on the presence of lead, with the Canadian laboratory TrichAnalytics and a team from Lariboisière Hospital.
The ground under the school slide is tested, as is that of the soccer field and some gardens.
The results reveal a lead contamination that would be 3 to 5 times higher than the threshold from which the contaminated soil must normally be replaced. And on the old site of the factory, the rates would be up to 774 times threshold.
– “Angry” –
The analysis of thyme leaves and leeks reveals lead levels that are up to 91 times higher than the legal thresholds.
The hair of 29 children from the school, also checked, testifies to exposure to lead, even if it is difficult to draw conclusions, for lack of comparison.
These results are considered “worrying, at least”, by Martin Boudot, the journalist who coordinates this investigation, broadcast next fall. “We were very surprised at the levels we found.”
With the Lille toxicologist Jean-Marie Haguenoer, his team also tried to assess the number of children in the area suffering from lead poisoning, the “lead disease” which affects the nervous system, bone marrow and kidneys.
By crossing various data, they estimate that 5,815 children could have been affected between 1962 and 2020. Of which a hundred for 20 years.
“I am appalled,” said Friday Awatif Roszak, 45 years old and resident of Courcelles-lès-Lens for five years, who attended, with a hundred inhabitants, associations and elected officials, the restitution of the study. “What can we do today, apart from moving?” she asked.
“When I built my house five years ago, we had no information on this persistent pollution, (…) no one told us how serious it was”, testifies to the AFP Alison Fynes, 33.
Owner at Evin-Malmaison since 2010, Clarisse Kaczmarek is “angry”. She denounces the inaction of the public authorities, and wonders if she would not “have an interest in leaving”.
“We did not expect pollution that is still so present,” testifies this public service executive, mother of two young children.
– “Injustice” –
A group of residents is trying to get the courts to recognize the state’s failure to control pollution. Without success so far.
The Hénin-Carvin urban community (CAHC, 14 municipalities) has filed a complaint to claim from the State “the restoration of polluted land” or, failing that, 574 million euros in damages. .
“The repair of an injustice”, explains its president, the socialist Christophe Pilch, who points to “health, heritage and economic damage”.
The area – five municipalities, 24,000 people – has been framed since 1999 by a project of general interest (PIG) which restricts land use.
The State is responsible for depollution to a depth of 50 cm, on condition that it has obtained a work permit. Because it is the fact of stirring up the earth, therefore releasing toxic dust, which would present a danger, explained the sub-prefect of Lens in 2018.
Contacted by AFP, the prefecture of Pas-de-Calais refers to the Regional Health Agency.
The latter points out that “eight screening campaigns” for lead poisoning were carried out between 1999 and 2012 on children in the area. The contamination rate, initially high (15% by the standards of the time), fell to 2.5% in 2012, “higher than the regional average”.
It also highlights a study that the ability of lead dust to pass into the blood decreases over time. And in 2020 requested an investigation from Santé Publique France for a possible strengthening of the precautionary measures prescribed in the area. This work must begin “in 2022-2023”, according to SFP.