Crabs Pinched by PCB
The port of Rouen wants to open a new disposal site for the sludge from dredging in the Seine’s bay. The public inquiry was closed yesterday. This 2 million meters³ “experience” covers itself in scientific fuss like the follow-up of the bioaccumulation of toxic elements contained in the sludge, thanks to the placing of 7 cages of mussels laid 2 to 10 km from the disposal site. This animal experimentation led by Ifremer is totally useless in regards to the ecological disaster that strikes a blow from heavy metals and PCB, endocrinal disruptors, at the ensemble of the Seine’s bay from the east to the west and from the top to the bottom.
Aprochim: The Countryside Factory
Following the alert at the beginning of 2011 on the passing of the health threshold by PCBs and dioxins in a sample of milk, the investigation broadens to a perimeter of 3 km around Aprochim, placing today under total or partial isolation the livestock of 8 agricultural farms at Grez-en-Bouère and at Bouère in the Mayenne region. The quasi-totality of the investigation concerns the meat and the fat from meat. For the milk, the situation is fluctuating and to this day the commercialization of the production of only one farm is suspended. The chicken factory farms are not touched, but the official report must be consolidated when the chickens are liberated from their cages in the springtime. On the other hand, the diligent research by the Regional Agency of Health shows that eggs in domestic backyards contain PCB and dioxin levels superior to the national average. The geographic logic of the contamination designates Aprochim as principally responsible. Aprochim is one of the accredited installations in France for the decontamination of transformers and metallic masses contaminated by PCBs. It is operational since 1990 and has treated more than 200,000 tons of contaminated material. A neighboring business of Aprochim is susceptible to release PCBs and dioxins into the atmosphere; specialising in paint stripping of metallic items, it is in financial trouble and does not have sufficient funds to conduct an analysis of its atmospheric emissions.
Swimming at the Paris PCBeach
To cope with the inertia of the prefect of police of Paris and the mayors of Paris and the Parisian suburbs, Robin des Bois (Robin Hood) informs the urban fishermen that the barbells, roaches, eels, breams, rudds, brills, chubs and the gudgeons who were the subject of a sampling and PCB analysis contain elevated concentrations of these cancerous micro pollutants and endocrinal disrupters.
This information is available on the site pollutions.eaufrance.fr (French only) and merit an attentive reading to which the experts at Robin des Bois are dedicated. The results of this active sampling campaign by the Minister for Ecology confirm the worries of Robin des Bois. In effect, for some years, and notably in its fourth edition of “The Atlas of Inland Sites Polluted by PCB,” published in February 2010, the NGO speaks of the “Parisian miracle,” thanks to which the fish, by swimming in the PCB, could be exempt from its effects.
(Français) Robin des Bois conseille aux pêcheurs à la ligne d’arrêter de s’empoisonner dans le Nord-Pas-de-Calais
Pernicious PCB
The environmental, sanitary, and social catastrophe due to PCB is propagated to the point that it now affects the sea and international waters. The sardines move, are eaten by carnivorous fish, and enter into the composition of fish meal. PCB accumulates and becomes concentrated in the higher levels of the food chain.
Robin des Bois publishes the map of interior and maritime waters struck by bans on fishing, consuming, or transporting all or particular species of fish. This map is comparable to an inventory of land sites polluted by PCB, regularly updated by Robin des Bois, and of which the newest version will be released at the end of next week.
