Walloon Minister of the Environment Céline Tellier gives details on biomonitoring.
EdA Mathieu Golinvaux
It is now official, a biomonitoring will be launched on residents of the Aubange metal crusher.
Human biomonitoring will be launched around the seven metal crushers in Wallonia.
The people of Aubange living near the Ecore site, in the Aubange zoning, are therefore concerned.
The objective is to mobilize between 50 and 100 volunteers per site (adolescents if possible or young adults), who will entrust the Issep (public service scientific institute) with a blood and urine sample and will answer a questionnaire. This recruitment phase should start in December.
The analysis of this biomonitoring will focus more generally on persistent organic pollutants and heavy metals. The results will then be compared with those of the Walloon biomonitoring covering the entire population. Results that you could discover in the national pages of our Tuesday edition.
Tuesday morning precisely, the deputies Jean-Philippe Florent (Ecolo) and Anne-Catherine Goffinet (cdH) questioned in committee the Minister of the Environment Céline Tellier, about this biomonitoring, which aims to clarify the impact of the environment on local populations.
Complete information for residents
«Biomonitoring cannot be carried out without the collaboration of the populations concerned and therefore their perfect information., specifies the Walloon minister. The project therefore involves complete information for local residents, which will be organized by Issep. It will be a question of presenting the research program while calling on volunteers to participate. This research program will take the time necessary for a quality analysis. It is due to start this fall and end normally in August 2023.»
Almost two years for a study, that may seem a long time. “This is explained by the fact that seven sites are concerned, that it will be necessary to recruit at least 50 people of the target age group per site and then proceed to the questionnaire, sampling and analysis of metals, PCBs and other organic molecules, lists the minister. It is a colossal work which is launched. By way of comparison, the results of the first general biomonitoring of the Walloon population presented this Monday were successful after two years of work.»
Céline Tellier also specifies that results feedback sessions are scheduled at the end of the research program. “This restitution, as in any biomonitoring program, must be done primarily for the participants of the study, before the communication of the general report.“, Adds the Minister, who recalls that her objective is not only to measure the pollution around metal crushers”but above all to reduce it, whether by upstream sorting, by imposing conditions in the permits and by installing filters as we have imposed..»
On the Ecore site in Aubange, the ultrafiltration process should be operational in November.
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