In a bunker of this “great site of France”, oil litters the ground and was still accessible to the public until 1is last January.
It is one of the emblematic places of northern Brittany, classified “large site in France” and managed by the coastal conservatory. Now at the heart of a controversy, the Pointe du Raz is seeing ghosts of the past resurface. In one of the Second World War bunkers on the site, oil resurfaced on the ground. In total, 120 tonnes of fuel oil and the equipment used for its extraction have been buried for almost 50 years, after the sinking of an oil ship, the Boehlen, in 1976 off the coast of Ouessant.
Since January 1, a decree taken by the municipality of Plogoff prohibits access to the bunker and its surroundings. “Look, the fuel oil is puking everywhere”exclaims Claude Marzan, a native of the country, to our colleagues at TF1. In 1976 and 1977, he saw the military trying to clean up the site: “They scooped it up by the shovel, put it in bags, and put the bags here afterwards, details the Breton. We can’t just brush everything under the rug like that.”
“We will take measures”
Legally, it is up to the department of Finistère to clean up the Pointe du Raz. “Obviously, we are going to act. In the first quarter of 2025, we will first establish a technical and scientific observation, to know exactly what is possible and what should be done. Then we will take the measures”assures Maël de Calan, president of the Departmental Council of Finistère.
-The Pointe du Raz bunker is far from being the only place that still contains oil. The environmental association Robin des Bois has counted nearly 200 storage areas throughout Brittany. Nothing indicates whether the materials still present any possible toxicity for humans or the environment which surrounds them.
Robin Hood Association
France
