The treatment of the most polluting materials from the old landfill in Le Havre must begin in 2024 for a first amount estimated between 29 and 41 million euros, said the mayor of Le Havre Édouard Philippe on Monday November 7, 2022.
Abandoned since the 1990s, the site, which contains a total of 450,000 m3 of rubble, microplastics, asbestos, polluted wood, tires, urban fill, non-inert land, hydrocarbons and PCBs, dumps between 30 and 80 m3 of waste each year into the sea. plastics, due to erosion.
The priority will be to treat 300,000 m3 of the most polluting waste located in an erodible zone and therefore likely to be washed away by the tide, dumped by building companies and then individuals since the 1960s from the top of the cliff about ten kilometers away. north of Le Havre, on the site of the former Dollemard open-air landfill.
Right in the Natura 2000 area
Following the various studies, inventories and surveys launched since 2018 and the test site carried out in 2021 on 3,000 m3 of waste, the Dollemard landfill management plan provides for a competitive dialogue procedure with construction companies to design a technical solution in 2023 , for work to begin in 2024, staggered over a period of two to five years, depending on the option chosen.
Read alsoAn old landfill in Le Havre continues to dump waste into the sea
The priority objectives of the project are to "
stop pollution of the marine environment and limit the environmental impact of the project on this sensitive natural area
" in the heart of the Natura 2000 zone, but no technical hypothesis has yet been chosen.
Risks of waste dumping at sea
Settling the question of this dump, the extent of which was revealed by storm Eleanor in 2018, was one of the commitments that Édouard Philippe, candidate for the municipal elections of 2020, had included in his program.
Dollemard was also one of the three priority sites listed in February 2022 in the National Plan for Coastal Landfills presenting risks of waste dumping at sea, established by the Ministry for Ecological Transition.
In question, “
the rise in sea level and the rapid erosion of the coastline due to global warming
”.
Visiting Le Havre in February, Bérangère Abba, then Secretary of State for Biodiversity at the Ministry, announced that the State would finance the site up to 50%.