"Drawing the consequences of Lubrizol". After the gigantic fire that occurred on September 26 at the Lubrizol car lubricants factory in Rouen (Seine-Maritime), the long-term health consequences of which remain uncertain, the Senate committee of inquiry has just released its conclusions.
"Like health monitoring proper, the identification of the health risk as practiced by the Ministry of Health was both late and incomplete", write the rapporteurs Christine Bonfanti-Dossat (LR) and Nicole Bonnefoy (PS) in their conclusions on this "major industrial accident".
This fire, which occurred on September 26 on the Seveso high threshold site, had caused a huge cloud of black smoke 22 km long with fallout of soot into the Hauts-de-France. Nearly 9,505 tonnes of chemicals had burned in this automobile lubricants plant and on the neighboring Normandy Logistics site.
Health monitoring is "problematic"
For the commission chaired by the centrist Hervé Maurey, the methodology adopted by the Ministry of Health for health monitoring is "problematic".
"It appears that it is impossible to give a definitive opinion on the health impact of the Lubrizol fire, given the only data collected in the context of environmental monitoring, the latter being totally or partially unusable", continue the senators.
VIDEO. Rouen fire: the blaze of the Lubrizol factory filmed by a drone
The Minister for the Ecological Transition is also criticized. Its stated objective following the disaster "50% increase in controls by 2022 at constant staff" is "unrealistic", according to the report.
“Urgent to review the doctrine of state crisis communication”
They also denounce the “premature” decision of the Minister of Agriculture to lift the ban on the sale of milk produced in more than 200 municipalities.
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The government is not the only one pinned in this report. "The industrial risk prevention policy deployed for 40 years in France reveals significant and unacceptable blind spots", write the rapporteurs.
This is the case with the budgetary appropriations allocated to risk prevention and the reduced number of sanctions in this area.
And they consider it "urgent to review the doctrine of state crisis communication" consisting of "wanting to reassure at all costs".
