Justice confirmed on January 17, 2025 the fine and financial penalty imposed on the company located in Noironte, in Doubs, estimating that the cheese factory had not taken significant action to repair the pollution caused since 2022 in the waters of the Saône.
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It is a legal standoff that has lasted for more than two years. The administrative court of Besançon confirmed this Friday, January 17, 2025, the rejection of the contentious appeal made by the company Mulin et fils against the orders of the prefect of Doubs, who imposed a fine of 15,000 euros and a penalty of 15,000 euros against the Noironte cheese factory. 1,500 euros per day.
In June 2022, residents of Recologne discovered hundreds of dead fish in the Noironte, a small tributary of the Saône.
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© France Télévisions
In question, the non-compliance by the company, owned by the Sodagral group, with the standards applicable to discharges from its installations into the natural environment and “the extent of the disturbance caused to the environment”. Note that the cheese factory had already been criminally sentenced on May 24, 2024 by the Besançon criminal court to pay a fine of €30,000 for the death of fish in the Saône at the end of 2022.
The Mulin cheese factory is an ICPE classified site (Installation classified for Environmental Protection), which must in particular respect standards in terms of cleanliness of the water it discharges.
-In September 2022, the prefecture and the departmental council of Doubs set up the “karst rivers plan 2022-2027“, in order to highlight actions to fight against pollution of the rivers of the Jura massif.
This is how the prefect of Doubs initiated a consignment procedure against the Comtoise cheese factory Mulin et fils, for having caused the death of fish at the end of May 2022 in the Saône, near Recologne, near Besançon. The amount of this deposit amounts to 1.5 million euros, a sum which was to be used to finance work to bring its wastewater treatment plant up to standard. All matched a penalty of 1 €500 per day.
The discharge of effluent by the company in fact exceeded 130 m3regulatory daily, with peaks observed at 511 m3 per day.
In June 2022, the Doubs fishing federation noted new pollution downstream from the Mulin cheese factory, accompanied by significant fish mortality, in the Recologne stream (25). The eighth in as many years according to the mayor of the town.
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© Guillaume Soudat – France Télévisions
On November 22, 2023, the cheese factory, which denies any responsibility for this pollution, requested the administrative court of Besançon to annul the prefectural decree making the company liable. In a decision rendered on January 26, 2024, the judge considered that there was no urgency to suspend this order, pending a judgment on the merits, which was finally rendered this Friday, January 17, 2025.
“Mulin et Fils demonstrates neither having sought nor having found an alternative solution to the treatment of its discharges within the one-month period which had been granted to it by the prefect of Doubs in his decree”we can read in the judgment rendered. The document also highlights that the company “limits his argument to allegations devoid of any beginning of proof, particularly scientific.”
