"A health scandal": in the Aude, the pollution inherited from the old gold mines

A river that winds in the middle of white pebbles, turquoise blue pools, small woods, the panorama is magical.

From the promontory above his house in Limousis (Aude), Robert Montané sweeps at full speed: “This is Montredon: 2.5 million tonnes of residue and another 500,000 tonnes of toxic products.

There, this hill is not one, it is the Artus, a storage area which shelters 10.5 million tons of mineral residues, including 500,000 tons of toxic products.

And there, there was a valley before, it's just shit, a pile 70 m high.

You see ?

»No, we don't see anything.

If not an excavator, at work below.

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Arsenic pollution in the Aude: "There is a permanent endangerment of the inhabitants"

“She moves bags of arsenate of lime, which is very toxic.

Until recently, there was a 4,500 t mille-feuille stored in this hole ”, describes Robert Montané,“ bin minus 4 ”.

This fine connoisseur of the area reads the heritage of the Salsigne gold mine in the countryside, where he worked for 30 years as a welder, miner and finally safety delegate.

Robert Montané, who worked at the Salsigne mine for 30 years, knows the region like the back of his hand and sees the traces left by gold mining.

LP / Olivier Arandel

“100 years of operation, 20,000 years of pollution,” calculates Frédéric Ogé, a specialist in soil pollution.

On April 7, a hearing was held for endangering others, particularly concerning the last months of operation and rehabilitation work.

Associations multiply the analyzes, demonstrate.

Local residents are working hard to have the pollution of the past recognized.

The former miner has "kept" bladder cancer ... but "did not want to fight against the windmills" to have it recognized as an occupational disease.

A heavy industrial facility

"This is a huge health scandal, which has the advantage of having been well documented, first by studying the health of minors for forty years," reports Frédéric Ogé, former researcher at the CNRS.

But the state fears the domino effect.

Behind this mine, 3,500 polluted mining areas should be investigated.

"The combat researcher has already" won beautiful fights like asbestos ".

He wants to believe that it will be the same for the inhabitants of Orbiel.

In Salsigne, the earth was dug from 1892 to 2004 to extract the precious yellow metal… and arsenic.

On the spot, no researcher sieve in hand in search of nuggets, the mine was a heavy industrial installation.

The precious metal was initially recovered by burning the ore in furnaces at very high temperature, in order to separate it in particular from the arsenic.

Then, in a second step, the industrialist chose cyanidation.

“Clearly, the waste from the past was then crushed more finely to pass it through cyanide soup,” explains Frédéric Ogé.

The arsenic, thus reduced to a very small dust, becomes much more dangerous than the arsenic present naturally.

For 1 m3 treated, that gives an oxidation surface (

Editor's note: therefore reaction to air and water

) of 200 football fields!

"

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In the 1980s, when the veins were running out, a company took over the kiln, the largest water-jacket in the world, to do "decontamination".

“A whole heap of very dangerous waste was burned there: soil polluted with cyanide and arsenic from Switzerland, final waste from Japan, Spain and Belgium.

We have added pollution to pollution ”, reports Frédéric Ogé.

Floods spread poison

Walking shoes and vaping in the mouth, Robert Montané, the former miner, continues what he calls, with irony, his “toxic trick”.

The red spots in the bed of the Orbiel river?

"Arsenic trapped in iron not dangerous."

»The road that stops dead in the middle of the olive trees?

“Backfilled with ultra-contaminated ores.

Sniff!

»He intends.

Indeed, the air stings the nose and itches the eyes ...

On the way, we meet the white van of the company responsible for making regular measurements of pollutants in the valley.

From the town of Villanière, the view of the Nartau storage site is breathtaking: an immaculate white trail at the top of the mountain.

“Not snow,” jokes the former miner, “but almost pure arsenic.

On this side, we collected the poison by processing the ore and we sent it by cable car up the hillside opposite.

This story, which the miner knows like the back of his hand, is on the verge of being forgotten.

A white trail tumbles down the mountain, flows of arsenate of lime, mainly composed of arsenic.

LP / Olivier Arandel

On the night of October 15 to 16, 2018, in a few hours, the equivalent of three months of precipitation fell.

The rivers overflowed.

In this very steep area, the damage was terrible.

The floods of the Aude, which killed fifteen people, “deposited sediments laden with arsenic, sulfur, cobalt, manganese, lead or even cyanide throughout the valley, regrets Frédéric Ogé.

A cocktail effect that no researcher has yet looked into.

"

Exceptional arsenic rates

Below the site of Nartau, the courtyard of the Lastours school was swept away by the current of the Greilhou.

"Fortunately it was night," blows Max Brail, mayor (without label) of this village of 165 inhabitants, from his office.

The small building in the shade of the Cathar castles welcomes children from around ten surrounding municipalities from the small section to the CP.

“I immediately questioned the authorities on the risks associated with pre-existing pollution.

I was assured that everything was going for the best, ”breathes the city councilor, well informed.

Former miner, Max Brail, the mayor of Lastours, alerts the authorities to the risks for the population.

LP / Olivier Arandel

He also worked in the mine.

Whistleblower even before the word exists, this steelworker was fired in 1995 for serious misconduct, after denouncing pollution.

He lost his job, his family.

"I even suffered false denunciations from comrades," he recalls.

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Aude: in the Orbiel valley, parents are afraid of arsenic

In April 2019, six months after the floods, studies, carried out by academics on the earth collected in the recess, gave "catastrophic results".

Non-standard arsenic levels, between 200 and 450 µg / g, ie five to twelve times the doses considered to be impactful for non-industrial sites.

“We let the children play, it still disturbs me,” euphemistically the elected official.

Since then, a layer of healthy material has been spread, and a thickness of 10 cm of polluted soil has been removed.

For decades, the mayor, reelected mandate after mandate, denounces the shortcomings and "in real mule with others" also obtained progress.

The water treatment plant which was to be destroyed is going to be renovated, a parliamentary inquiry was launched, Minister Emmanuelle Wargon went to the site… “I am 68 years old, I am fighting for my grandchildren.

We must be collectively responsible and no longer hide our eyes, ”he repeats over and over again.

Toxic products in the hair

“This is my 9 year old son!

»Exclaims Mickaël, says« Mika », throwing in an analysis sheet.

We will not know the first name or the face of this child, the inhabitant of Conques-sur-Orbiel, a village ravaged by floods, wishing to protect his offspring.

However, on the results, the magenta color with the legend "at risk" attached to antimony, hafnium, tellurium, thorium (toxic elements) and especially to europium (rare earths) is alarming.

In September 2020, three associations funded hair analyzes of 100 people.

All samples contained metal, an average of five of these toxicants were detected per person.

And up to twenty-five different on one of the inhabitants, summarizes Gérard Balbastre, president of the local antenna of Catholic relief.

“After Seine-Saint-Denis, the department is the poorest in France.

Those who take refuge there are often penniless people.

It is on them that this legacy weighs.

We cannot morally look away.

So in his garden, he installed synthetic grass under the slide so that his grandchildren did not scratch the very polluted earth, while continuing to fight.

Not easy, while many of its neighbors view with a negative eye this action which lowers the price of real estate or tarnishes the image of the valley.

The Orbiel River is colored by iron chloride, diluted in water to remove arsenic.

LP / Olivier Arandel

For “Mika”, the revelation of the pollution after the floods was like a slap in the face.

The Northerner arrived with his little family six years ago.

At the time, neither the seller, nor the notary, nor the town hall had considered it wise to prevent him from the pollution resulting from the mining past.

Since 2018, there have been concerns about the number of cancers, especially among young people.

Two years ago, a local child died of brain cancer.

A few weeks before his death, his hospital record made the link with the disused mine.

At the Aude prefecture, it is promised that “measures to protect the population have been taken in order to limit any possible exposure of people to pollution;

measures banning or restricting the use of certain facilities (stadiums, bowling alleys, playgrounds) were thus pronounced by the prefect;

activities linked to the river (swimming, fishing) have also been the subject of adapted measures.

"The representatives of the State assure that the health services have installed" an individual biological monitoring device of the exposure to arsenic of the populations of the Orbiel valley for children under 11 years old and women pregnant ”.

This was not enough to reassure Gilles, domiciled in Mas-Cabardès, a village located a little further from the mine.

He and two of his three children also had a lock of their hair tested.

"We found a whole bunch of barbaric products, frankly I do not know what to do with this information", slips the student's parent, very mobilized within the Gratte-papier association.

“Mika's” doctor turned to a toxicologist to read these atypical results.

“It seems that his verdict was immediate: Get out of here!

»He laments.

Many parents have also taken their children under their arms and have been scrambling since the floods.

Not Gilles, not "Mika".

“If I sold my house to a new family by lying to them, I just wouldn't be able to look at myself in a mirror anymore.

It's the fight of a lifetime, ”he slips.

These quadras resume the fight of the ancients.

Also so that we do not forget the history, that we do not hide this toxic heritage under the carpet.

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