It’s a drop in the bucket in the French energy giant’s overall budget. Found guilty of pollution generated by its methanizer in Châteaulin, in Finistère, the company Engie has just been fined 150,000 euros. An amount half as high as the maximum fine provided for by French law which amounts to 375,000 euros. This drop of water will easily be drowned in the budget lines of the company which posted 94 billion euros in turnover in 2022. Especially since Engie will not have to pay the entire amount if it stands with a third of the fine being suspended.
If justice decided to attack the energy group partly owned by the French state, it was for the pollution of a river which had deprived 180,000 people of drinking water in August 2020. During the hearing , the prosecution pointed out the “negligence” of the company in this matter. “The amount of the fine seems commensurate with the facts,” said Morgane Quintard, lawyer for the environmental defense association Bretagne Vivante.
The Eau et Rivières de Bretagne association, which fought to obtain a public trial, also expressed its satisfaction. “It is important that there was a conviction, that justice was done publicly, with education,” underlined Arnaud Clugery, spokesperson for the association.
A spike in ammonia in the water
On August 17, 2020, a tank of the methanizer, which injects methane produced from manure, slurry or waste from the agri-food industry into the gas network, overflowed following a technical incident. Around 400 m3 of digestate, an organic material resulting from the methanization process, had flowed into the Aulne, upstream of a drinking water plant, causing an ammonia peak and making the water unfit for consumption. .
The company was notably prosecuted for “discharge of harmful substances into groundwater, surface water or the sea” and “pollution by discharge into fresh water or fish farming of substances harmful to fish”. During the hearing on September 28, Antoine de La Faire, general manager of Engie Bioz, recognized a “design problem” in this “recent sector” which is “continuously improving”.