Children victims of Industrial Wasteland
On Sunday May 6th, a twelve-year-old child trespassed onto the transformer of the Usmeco plant, at Conches-en-Ouche in the French department Eure (Normandy). This former plant for the surface treatment of metals was the subject of bankruptcy eleven years ago. Despite the interventions from the ADEME (Environmental Agency and Energy Control), there are still dangerous materials inside and heavy metals and cyanides contaminated the soil. The site was not supervised and was not protected against intrusions. According to Robin des Bois, there are strong presumptions that the transformer was contaminated with PCB. If this is the case, it would have had to be eliminated at the latest at the end of year 2010. In any event, it is strange that a transformer inside the closed plant eleven years ago had been under voltage. Other transformers, on the property of Umesco could have been fractured in extracting some copper. The ground belongs to a SCI (real estate company) related to the former directors of Usmesco. The site of Usmesco is registered in the BASOL database that is updated by the Ministry of Ecology, Sustainable Development, and Energy. The BASOL database lists the sites and polluted grounds calling for a preventive or curative action of public powers.
