The investigation unit of Radio France and the France Bleu network have analyzed the tap water of nearly 90 municipalities. Although the extent of the contamination in Saint-Symphorien-d’Ozon has been known for two years, residents still do not know what to do while waiting for the sanitation work.
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Are there eternal pollutants in your tap water? Radio France’s Investigation Unit with the France Bleu network conducted the investigation by analyzing PFAS, these very persistent chemical molecules, in the tap water of nearly 90 municipalities throughout metropolitan France.
There are 43% of samples containing PFAS, of which about ten have even worrying levels and three towns already exceed the standard provided by France, notably in Saint-Symphorien-d’Ozon in the Rhône. For two years, the inhabitants of this town, located south of Lyon, downstream of the chemical corridor, have known that they are drinking non-compliant water.
This is a real headache for residents like Stéphanie, a member of a citizens’ collective in the south of Lyon. She doesn’t always know what to do with the tap water: “It’s hell, we switched to bottled water, but then there were the revelations about microplastics… So we went back to tap water, like that, we said to ourselves that at least we were mixing the pollution.”
Even though the limit has been exceeded, the ARS has not banned water consumption in the region, but it has demanded an action plan from the communities to reduce this pollution as quickly as possible. A plan that is expensive, explains Anne Grosperrin, the elected official in charge of the water cycle at the Lyon metropolitan area: “It’s not going to be overnight that we’ll have compliance. We’ll be able to have filtration systems that will reduce pollution throughout 2025. This work, which is major work and will cost more than five million euros.”
“It’s really a race against time to get quality water back for the population.”
Anne Grosperrin, Vice-President of the Lyon Metropolitan Area in charge of the water cycleto franceinfo
Communities such as Saint-Symphorien-d’Ozon have launched legal proceedings to enforce the polluter-pays principle. They hope that industrialists in the chemical corridor whose PFAS discharges have contributed to polluting their waters will also participate in this financial effort.