2023-11-08 07:33:22
Upheavals for these residents who regret that “politics [ne] respect [pas] the citizens. It’s against politicians that I have it!“, testifies one of them, angry.
But it is a healthy anger. “I won’t let this happen anymore, we will collaborate with the elders and the young to try to follow this stronger“, she adds in a determined tone.
However, action must, above all, come from the authorities.
We do not have our own PFAS discharge standards.
Nicolas Yernaux, spokesperson for the SPW
First at the regional level, to set stricter or more numerous discharge limits for the environmental permits of companies present in its territory.
But in the south of the country, it’s different. In the voice of the spokesperson for the Public Service of Wallonia (SPW), Nicolas Yernaux: “We do not have our own PFAS discharge standards” for wastewater. Before adding that around ten Walloon companies have PFAS emission values in their environmental permit. During our investigation, we met the company Chemviron which told us that it can release up to 25,000 ng/l of PFOS into its wastewater, otherwise it would be fined. This threshold for a single PFAS is 250 times less strict than the limit values in the permits of Flemish companies like 3M. “The Surface Water Department has been applying a French sector standard for some time and requires monitoring of PFAS in order to reassess the discharges of the companies concerned. Some permits also have stricter standards“, would like to specify Nicolas Yernaux of the SPW, without further details.
The region and the State also have their share of responsibility for legislating threshold limits for the presence of PFAS in Walloon and Brussels waters and soils. And this, while sometimes being more ambitious than what Europe imposes, like Flanders, Denmark or the United States, to protect their inhabitants today. And especially tomorrow.
Find the episode of #Investigation “Eternal pollutants, guilty silence” on November 8, 2023 at 8:20 p.m. on the front page.
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