At Spaque, the Walloon company in charge of cleaning up polluted soil, a historian is trying to locate old industrial sites and abandoned landfills by drawing on archives and the last witnesses.
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Journalist at the Planet pole
By Jean-François MunsterPublished on 10/20/2024 at 5:47 p.m.
Reading time: 4 min
En a few decades, the Walloon landscape has been profoundly modified in places. In place of a cornfield, a peaceful residential area, a park, a promenade along a canal, sometimes imposing coal mines, mechanical workshops, metal foundries, gas factories… Most often, local residents know nothing about this industrial past. Time has done its work. Those who experienced this period are no longer very numerous and the traces have been erased. All or almost all… The soils retain the memory of these past industrial activities.
At the time there was little concern for the environment and the release of toxic substances into nature. Consequence: many of these soils are polluted and can present significant risks to human health, water resources and ecosystems.
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