“Very often, unfortunately, one disaster drives the other away. Just because there is a Covid doesn’t mean you have to forget Lubrizol, do not [en] draw conclusions and that’s the goal of the commission. We make proposals to prevent this from happening again ”, summarized Senator Hervé Maurey, President of the senatorial commission of inquiry who will report on the factory fire which caught fire last September.
Created on October 10 unanimously by the Senate, the commission evaluated “The intervention of state services in the management of the environmental, health and economic consequences of the fire”.
The disaster had caused a huge cloud of black smoke 22 km long with soot fallout in Hauts-de-France. Fresh products (milk, vegetables) had ceased to be sold as a precaution in more than two hundred municipalities for three weeks.
Three ministers interviewed
By September 26, nearly 9,505 tonnes of chemicals had burned: 5,253 tonnes at the Seveso high threshold Lubrizol site and 4,252 tonnes at the site of neighboring company Normandie Logistique, 1,600 of which belonged to Lubrizol.
During forty hours of hearing, the senators did not spare their interlocutors, the mayor PS of Rouen Yvon Robert seeing himself, for example, qualified as“Excellent Lubrizol avocado” by Christine Bonfanti-Dossat, LR rapporteur.
Among the some 80 hearings conducted, the president and chief executive officer of the Lubrizol group Éric Schnur, ministers Christophe Castaner (Interior), Agnès Buzyn (Health) and Élisabeth Borne (Ecological transition), unionists and many experts were heard. All have sworn to tell the truth to the commission.
Causes of the claim still uncertain
The senators went to Rouen. “What struck us most, I think, was our visit to Lubrizol both because it was visually impressive and above all” because of “Trauma” Staff, “All the more so since they were assaulted by people who called them murderers”, explains Hervé Maurey.
The commission also moved to the “Valley of chemistry” in the Rhône, marked by a disaster in a refinery in Feysin in 1966 (18 dead).
However, questions remain unanswered.
For several weeks and for several months, residents of the Rouen conurbation were bothered by the smell of hydrocarbons, headaches, nausea and even vomiting, raising concerns about long-term health risks.
“We are making proposals regarding this long-term follow-up”, underlines Hervé Maurey.
Another gray area, the ongoing investigation by the Paris prosecutor’s office has not yet been able to determine the causes of the fire.
At the end of February, Lubrizol was placed under investigation for “Spillage of harmful substances” and for shortcomings in the operation of its factory which carried a “Serious impairment” to the environment. The company, which was able to partially restart in Rouen in mid-December, has been placed under judicial supervision.
A guarantee of € 375,000 and a “Safety” € 4 million to repair the “Human and environmental damage” possibly attributable to the fire were requested from the company owned by American billionaire Warren Buffett.
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