The archives of the Liège courthouse are taking on water. The building is very new but it is experiencing major humidity problems. Part of the archives is waterlogged, moldy and therefore unusable, with possible consequences for the health of employees.
Completely rotten files, filled with fungus and mold… In a room of more than 500 square meters, half of the shelves are affected. Water trickles down to floor level and seeps through the ceiling. To try to limit the damage, gutters have been placed in certain places, but the solution is completely insufficient. The problem room is located in the third basement, below the new courthouse. The building is around fifteen years old, it was built above the Légia, a watercourse which has been canalized.
“This watercourse, when it experiences heavy rain, poses a problem and there is water infiltration which occurs in the building”explains Audrey Gérard, permanent union representative for Justice (CSC).
The condemned premises
The first problem is the health of the personnel who handle these archives. “Everything is really in a catastrophic state, so we no longer know and we can no longer touch the files, nor move them, nor transport them, nor open them. So we alerted the occupational medicine who came on site, who established a closure report”she adds.
Entry into the premises can only be done today with a full suit, an FFP3 mask, overshoes and gloves.
Second problem, hundreds of waterlogged court archives are no longer accessible. “They will have to be frozen and then processed so that they can eventually be reused”.
Certain files in more or less correct condition still leave the archives to be consulted. Staff fear they will contaminate the entire building. An air analysis was requested.
courthouse Liège Archives
