The president of the Ardennes Fishing Federation announced that he had filed a complaint on Wednesday August 12 against Nestlé after the pollution of the Aisne, which resulted in the death of thousands of fish.
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Detected in the night from Sunday to Monday at Challerange, 50 km from Reims, the pollution of the river " has led to a very high fish mortality due to the decrease in the oxygen content in the water ", indicated the prefecture of the Ardennes in a press release.
" We have just lodged a complaint against Nestlé France for pollution and violation of article 432.2 of the Environmental Code ," Michel Adam, president of the Ardennes Fishing Federation, said to AFP, who considers that the damage s 'amounts to " several thousand euros ".
"A disaster"
" Everything died on a portion of 7 km and 30 meters wide ", he lamented. “ We have already recovered three tonnes of dead fish. But there are still some, 14 species have been affected, including protected species such as the eel and the lamprey ”. " I've been with the federation for 40 years, I've never seen pollution of this magnitude ... "
Asked by AFP, the Nestlé factory in Challerange, which manufactures powdered milk, confirmed a “ occasional and involuntary overflow of biological sludge effluents, without the presence of chemicals ” from its wastewater treatment plant on Sunday evening.
" As soon as we learned of the report on Sunday at 11 p.m., we immediately stopped production and put an end to the spill, " its director, Tony do Rio, said in a statement. “ This spill was one-off over a period of less than three hours on Sunday evening, ” he added, adding that the activity of the plant had been “ stopped for a few days ”.
Since Tuesday, volunteer fishermen and firefighters " carry out the removal of fish and their evacuation ", said the prefecture and " a dam has been installed to contain the spread of pollution ". “ Over the past two days, more than two tonnes of fish have been removed. This work will continue ”Thursday.
" However, no fish mortality was noted Wednesday (...), a sign of a probable dilution of the pollution ", she said Wednesday at the end of the day. According to Daniel Drivière, president of the Challerange fishing company, “ we even found dead fish over 1.5 meters long. It is a disaster. »Analyzes are in progress, in particular to determine possible chemical and / or bacteriological pollution.