In 2018, thanks to the stubbornness of the environmental association Robin des Bois, an inventory of oil spill waste sites was carried out by BRGM, the Bureau of Geological and Mining Research. The request was made in 2009 by the Minister of Ecology at the time, Jean-Louis Borloo. In this inventory, which is still current, 147 storage sites are listed in 26 municipalities in Côtes-d’Armor and 21 in Finistère. Plogoff was one of them.
According to Jacky Bonnemains, spokesperson for Robin des Bois, there was a failure to transmit files from mandate to mandate, between mayors, which “did not facilitate the transmission of the memory of the sites”. However, maintains the environmental activist, the main elected officials were informed, one by one, physically, of the presence of hydrocarbon deposits in their basement. “In Plogoff, for example, from the start of the investigation, in 2010, the elected officials and management of the Pointe du Raz site were informed. »
Jacky Bonnemains does not understand that on such a sensitive site, classified as a Great Site of France (such as the Pont du Gard, the Pilat dune or the Ardèche gorges) decontamination actions have not been undertaken and that, during for years, the public has been able to access deposits. Access to a blockhouse, soiled with hydrocarbons, having been closed following an article in Le Télégramme, at the end of December 2024. “We must pump out what can be pumped and monitor very closely what has been buried. Because, tomorrow, erosion and rising sea levels could have unpleasant surprises in store for us,” continues the spokesperson for Robin des Bois.
Cedre will offer its services
When contacted, the network of Grands sites de France which, for 20 years, has awarded this label to the Pointe du Raz, did not react and said “it had no information on this subject”. It refers to the site manager which, since January 1st, is the department of Finistère. The latter, in a press release – common to the prefecture and the Conservatoire du Littoral, owner of the site – informed that a technical evaluation would be carried out soon.
For its part, Cedre, specialized in accidental water pollution – an organization based in Brest – informs that it will offer its services to the Department for a scientific and technical assessment. It will perhaps lead to a decontamination of the site which would be more in line with the highly environmentally friendly image that the Pointe du Raz has been conveying for years.
Belgium
