In Saint-Malo, you don't only breathe the sea air but also pungent and pungent odors. So much so that it is sometimes impossible to open the windows. "When I arrived three years ago, I didn't know what it was and it worried me about my children," said Guillaume Fresneau, 45. Then he discovered that they came from two factories Timac Agro, a subsidiary of the Breton group Roullier, which produce fertilizers and fertilizers.
Many Falklands, out of fatalism or fear of attacking one of the city's biggest employers, have come to learn to live with it. Guillaume, him, decided, with 11 other residents and the Osons association, to take legal action against the Timac Agro company for abnormal neighborhood disturbances.
Depending on the direction of the wind, they have suffered for too long to their liking these odor nuisances and dust emissions which are accompanied by health problems: nausea, headaches, respiratory discomfort ... Frédéric Benatre, regularly prone to tracheitis, has had to resolve to move from the historic center five years ago.
Acute headaches, conjunctivitis, breathing difficulties ...
"I saw my state of health deteriorate particularly at the ophthalmological and respiratory levels," says another resident, Danièle Poisson. The first symptoms were severe headache, runny nose, tingling in the eyes, acute conjunctivitis and difficulty breathing. "
Bad smells hide another more insidious problem, revealed by checks carried out only two years ago: ammonia pollution. Timac Agro factories release this gas into the atmosphere with concentrations up to six to fourteen times higher than the regulations. This poses a concern from a health point of view, ammonia being a very important precursor of fine particles classified as carcinogenic. Moreover, according to a report by the Airbreizh organization, the air quality in Saint-Malo is not very good. The concentrations of fine particles are 10% and 30% higher than those measured in Rennes and Saint-Brieuc.
Timac Agro "continues its compliance action plan"
In the summer of 2018, the state services had given notice to the company to respect the limit values within three months and then sanctioned it financially. The pollution continued. "With the confinement, we thought we would breathe better but the Timac took the opportunity to spit even more", accuses Alain Guillard, the president of the Osons association which created in 2015 a network of Malouin noses responsible for identifying and characterize the odor nuisance.
“Legal action was inevitable because the prefectural decrees were not respected. We are waiting for clear answers, particularly on the public health aspect. The only way is to appoint an independent expert who will determine the work required, ”said Ms. Virginie Le Roy, the applicants' lawyer.
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According to the Ille-et-Vilaine prefecture, Timac Agro "continues its compliance action plan, with regular points in the prefecture". When questioned, the company said it was working "on this file in close consultation and in good understanding with the authorities concerned". An answer she had already given us, word for word, in February. The summary hearing is scheduled for June 11 in Saint-Malo.
