2023-11-10 13:14:00
The inhabitants of 12 Hennuyer villages unknowingly consumed water contaminated with these toxic components for almost a year and a half, between October 2021 and March 2023. This is a level five times higher than the tolerable dose set by the European Food Safety Authority. Around 12,000 people would be affected. This is what journalists from the Investigation (RTBF) program discovered.
It appears that the political authorities and responsible administrations were informed of the existence of this pollution, a contamination so toxic that residents of the municipalities concerned are today asked not to consume locally produced eggs and vegetables.
At the beginning of 2023, Flemish Minister of the Environment Zuhal Demir (N-VA) twice sent a letter to the Walloon and Brussels ministers to inform them of this contamination. The letter was sent to Brussels residents Alain Maron (Climate, Ecolo) and Elke Van den Brandt (Mobility, Groen), Christie Morreale (Social Action, PS) and Céline Tellier (Environment, Ecolo).
The letters informed them that the water arriving in Flanders and imported via the town of Halle was subject to local contamination which seemed problematic at first glance. A first letter was sent on March 30, 2022.
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A little less than a year later, on January 30, 2023, Zuhal Demir contacted the ministers again. In the letter that we were able to consult, the minister recalls that in March 2022, she had “suggested to Ministers Tellier and Maron to plan regular consultations on the levels of PFAS in drinking water, with regard to the quality of drinking water and interregional problems”.
”In this letter, I had already mentioned that the PFAS advisory values for drinking water were not always respected in areas where Flanders imports drinking water from other regions,” the letter states.
”Unfortunately, a recent report shows that Halle’s drinking water, supplied by Vivaqua, contains PFAS values significantly higher than the health values of the EFSA (European Food Safety Authority, Editor’s note), but also significantly higher than future European standards of the reinforced drinking water directive of the European Union.”
At the beginning of November, the Demir cabinet sent a letter to its Walloon and Brussels counterparts. Referring to previous letters of March 30, 2022 and January 30, 2023 concerning the supply of drinking water containing PFAS to Flemish water distribution companies, the minister asks political leaders to inform her “of the state of the research on PFAS levels in the Walloon and Brussels water system for the production of drinking water”.
After the broadcast of the RTBF report, the Minister of the Environment Céline Tellier (Ecolo) announced that she wanted to provide the affected populations with “all the information they need”. The environmentalist minister specified that she had “initiated contacts with the mayors concerned” and also “decided to convene the Walloon Water Company (SWDE) to shed light on the communication process which seems to have been lacking at the time”.
Obviously, the communication process had actually already broken down at the political level.
Following the revelations of contamination, residents of the most affected municipalities did not hide their anger at the lack of communication from public authorities on such a serious reality which undoubtedly put their health at risk.
These new elements can only prove them right.
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