Pollution
Humain
Environnement
Economique

At around 2:00 a.m., the ‘broken pulp’ silo at a paper mill began overflowing. The silo contains broken strips of pulp from production incidents. The overflow resulted in an excessive inrush of pulp inside the effluent discharge tunnel, blocking it. With nowhere else to go, the underground levels of effluent rose up and into the raw materials courtyard and flowed into the storm drains leading to the River Gelon. White streaks could be seen on the surface of the Gelon for 13 km. Firefighters placed a boom on the water to trap the largest suspended solids.

Measures taken by the operator

To prevent a recurrence of such an accident, the operator:

  • established a procedure for maintaining the level inside the ‘broken pulp’ silos as low as possible and for halting production when the towers reach 95% capacity.
  • is studying the possibility of separating the networks so that the gratings on the storm drain closest to the production building are connected to the process sewers.
  • is studying the possibility of modifying the broken-pulp circuits so that it no longer flows in the process water discharge tunnel.

The cost of the necessary retrofits is estimated at €200,000.

Action taken by the inspection authorities for classified facilities

As the Gelon had already been polluted by other incidents at the site, the inspection authorities asked the Prefect of Savoie to issue a formal notification order so that a comprehensive study of their causes could be conducted.