An industrial cheese factory in Noironte (Doubs) was sentenced on Friday by the Besançon criminal court to a fine of 30,000 euros for having polluted streams and killed fish.
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The Mulin cheese factory was found guilty of polluting the Placey and Noironte streams, and killing numerous fish, by discharging poorly treated water and in too large quantities through its wastewater treatment plant, from May 31 to June 2, 2022.
The company was authorized by prefectural decree to discharge a certain volume of treated water into the stream, but “this discharge volume was largely exceeded”, judged the president of the criminal court, Guillaume Law of Lauriston.
“The findings demonstrate that pollution was already present in the part of the stream directly fed by water from the cheese factory, which demonstrates its responsibility in this pollution,” he added.
“It is clean and purified water that we reject,” contested Jean-Baptiste Dubrulle, defense lawyer, requesting the release. The fish mortality, observed “over three days only, not before, not after”, can be “linked to the drought of May 2022”, he argued.
Maximum fine required
The prosecution had requested a “maximum” fine of 375,000 euros against the company, whose annual turnover amounts to “42 million euros”, during the hearing at the end of March. Dead fish by the dozen, grayish water, septic odors: prosecutor Claire Keller had listed the elements attesting to an “abnormal pollution localized at the cheese factory”, which “prevented all aquatic life”.
“It is a symbolically important decision, the Mulin de Noironte cheese factory is the last in the Doubs department which poses difficulties in terms of river pollution,” responded Besançon prosecutor Etienne Manteaux. “There will be checks in a judicial framework to see if it now complies with administrative rules.”
The pollution had been noted by an agent from the French Biodiversity Office who had gone up the waterways following the traces of pollution, which extended over two kilometers from the wastewater evacuation nozzles of the cheese factory .
“This pollution is assumed and completely voluntary,” pointed out Dominique Landbeck, lawyer for the Doubs Fishing Federation, civil party. The Doubs prefecture is also demanding a deposit of 1.5 million euros from the cheese factory to finance the upgrading of its wastewater treatment plant.
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