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Video length: 6 min
Pollution: in the Lille area, gardens contaminated with lead due to a factory
Pollution: in the Lille area, gardens contaminated with lead due to a factory – (France 2)
Residents of the Lille area who live near the Exide factory are affected by lead pollution in their gardens. They have created an association, and are thinking of taking the company to court so that it takes charge of the decontamination of their land.
We don’t see them, we don’t smell them, and yet lead dust pollutes the gardens of hundreds of homes in an area of the Lille metropolitan area. For decades, the Tudor factory, today Exidessent dust from lead on the surrounding land. But it was only last year that huge rates of contamination were revealed. There are hundreds of polluted plots around the factory Exides. Today they constitute the SUP (public utility easement), the administrative term for this zone set up by the prefecture.
A pollution threshold beyond that set by the health authorities
In the SUP, pollution is at least 500 milligrams of lead per kilo of dry earth, the majority of which is due to the factory. This is more than the alert threshold set by health authorities, at 300 milligrams per kilo. The only cases for which Exides paid for the change of land concern plots where the lead content exceeds 1,000 kg per kilo. A threshold validated by public authorities. Residents affected by this pollution have created an association. They are thinking of taking the company to court, and would likeExides support the depollution of their land.
