Nearly two years ago, 892 tonnes of lithium batteries caught fire in a warehouse of the Bolloré Logistics company in Grand-Couronne (Seine-Maritime). The batteries are still in place and the site is not decontaminated. Highway France Logistics 8 (HFL8), the owner of the warehouse, was served with formal notice by the prefecture on December 12, 2024.
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“It’s a health and environmental scandal,” insists Christophe Holleville of the Union of Victims of Lubrizol.
This environmental activist denounces the presence of 12,000 burned batteries, two years after the fire at the Bolloré Logistics warehouse.
As a reminder, it is Highway France Logistics 8 (HFL8) which owns the warehouses where the fire of January 2023 took place. The cell where the fire originated was rented to HFL8 by Bolloré Logistics, which there stored batteries on behalf of Blue Solutions.
“The batteries are still on site on a slab which was damaged during the fire, all cracked which must allow lithium to pass into the groundwater, denounces Christophe Holleville. And every time we move them, the fire starts again…”
Especially since there are no longer any barriers to pollution since October 28, 2024, as revealed by our colleagues at 76actu.
“The company Valgo was selected to install the hydraulic barrier pumping the water from the groundwater and treating the retained water before discharge, in order to avoid the dispersion outside the site of the lithium pollution detected in the water. underground, explains the Seine-Maritime prefecture. This hydraulic barrier, installed in July 2023, aims to confine the lithium lens which infiltrated into the water table to the site following the fire and therefore to avoid dispersion outside the site of the pollution.”
According to information available to DREAL, Valgo was no longer paid by Highway France Logistics 8 (HFL8), owner of the building burned in January 2023 in which lithium batteries were notably stored. As a result, Valgo decided to remove the hydraulic barrier.
As soon as DREAL was informed of the removal of this barrier, an inspection was carried out on site, on November 6, and the prefect of Seine-Maritime adopted, after a period of contradictory procedure, a prefectural order implementing remains as of December 12, 2024.
“This decree requires Highway France Logistics 8 to comply with the requirements laid down in terms of installations classified for environmental protection and in particular to put back into service the hydraulic barrier composed of a pumping installation, an installation treatment of the water resulting from this pumping and the discharge into the Seine of the purified water. This decree also requires the submission of a purchase order relating to the clearance of waste from cell 1.indicates the prefecture.
The order puts Highway France Logistics 8 on notice to put in place the measures and systems required by it before February 28, 2025.
The company must also provide a purchase order for the clearance of waste from cell 1 before January 31, 2025.
“In any event, it is the operator, Highway France Logistics 8, who will have to bear the financial cost of putting this hydraulic barrier back in place and in operation and in no case the State, and therefore the taxpayers”assures the prefecture.
In parallel with this administrative procedure, a report was sent by the prefecture to the public prosecutor of Rouen regarding the procedure for removing and abandoning the hydraulic barrier.
“But until then, the batteries continue to pollute on site, it’s a health and environmental scandal,” Christophe Holleville gets angry.
The calcined batteries are still on site, confirms the prefecture, specifying that “their lithium content requires special precautions to carry out their removal, which has significantly delayed the design of the work procedure to carry out the removal of this rubble”.
This operating procedure is now established and could already have been implemented. This is the reason why SAS Highway France Logistics 8, as holder of the authorization to operate the warehouse, was required to provide the order form for this work.
The prefecture of Seine-Maritime
But then, how can we protect groundwater while waiting for the actions of Highway France Logistics 8? Won’t the absence of a hydraulic barrier contaminate groundwater?
“Regarding the return to service of the hydraulic barrier, there is indeed a risk that groundwater spreading will occur, replies the prefecture. Hence the need for pumping/treatment of this water, for which the operator was given notice.”
However, the prefecture explains that the deadline set in a formal notice must be in relation to the time necessary for the operational implementation of the devices by the operator (in this case bringing back on site most of the necessary equipment: pumps , filters, and above all very specific water treatment equipment).
“A formal notice with too short a deadline could have been canceled by the judge. The prescribed deadline was however, and taking into account the urgency, set shorter than the period which was initially necessary for the establishment of this barrier “, explains the prefecture, which certainly does not want to relive the recent experience of the annulment of two of its orders by the administrative court in the context of this case.
In fact, at the beginning of October 2024, Bolloré Logistics and Blue Solutions, had also been put on notice by the State to finish cleaning up the disaster site.
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