- Robin des Bois - https://robindesbois.org/en -

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.

Carte_PCB_fev10-Robindesbois [1]

The French government does not take disaster measures, and sparingly distills tardy and prohibitive mandates.

They have missed the call to prohibit fishing in the canal network of Nord-Pas-de-Calais, and above all the path of the Seine outside Corbeil-Essonne, upsteam of Paris.

Concerning salt-water fish, official information prudently forgets to evoke the bar of the eastern English Channel, which is also threatened, just as are the mackerels. The negative effects of PCB contamination on reproductive capacities of fish continue to be neglected, even when they are known.

Regarding emergency actions, Robin des Bois advocates:

-An information campaign geared toward the general public. ADEME (Environmental and Energy Agency) has the funds for this. In effect, the detention of devices containing PCB is not reserved, as often believed, to industrial entities.

– The strict control of collection channels for metals and electronics waste.

– New modalities for managing dredging sludge of ports, of which the quasi-totality is dumped at sea, the balance being deposited on land without any particular precaution. For the last 50 years, navigational security has taken priority over security of the food supply.

– The reinforcement of regulations on the treatment of soil and mud polluted by PCB.

– The systematic research of PCB in liquid releases from landfills, legal or illegal.

– The nomination of a unique authority for PCB to the detriment of this pile-on of commisions, committees, services, and handouts which facilitate the progression of PCB.

– In the frame of international maritime conventions, exactitude and punctuality in annual reports on discharges and outflows of PCB in the Atlantic and the Mediterranean.

– The reinforcement of sanctions and urgent information to magistrates on offenses of abandoning devices or soil containing PCB, as well as the effects of accidental or intentional pollution on rivers, streams, and waterways.

In virtue of the articles pertinent to the Environmental Code punishing the act of dumping, pouring, or allowing harmful substances to affect the conservation of fish or other marine mammals, Robin des Bois is about to lodge a complaint against X for the offense of pollution and putting the lives of others in danger in the competant tribunal in the Seine-Normandy river basin.