The water intended for the consumption of 166,000 inhabitants of the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region contains Pfas, the “eternal pollutants”, at levels higher than the European reference threshold, according to the analysis results published Monday by the regional agency health (ARS).
The consumption of this water is not prohibited but the ARS has, for the first time, requested corrective measures from the fifty or so municipalities concerned, most of which are located in the chemical valley south of Lyon.
“We cannot wait to act”
Under penalty of being put on notice, these communities had to present as quickly as possible “the measures of their choice to return below the threshold” of 100 nanograms per liter, and will have three years to put them in place, explained to the press. Aymeric Bogey, director of public health at the agency.
The “quality limit, even if it is exceeded, does not mean that there is an immediate risk for the population”, Aymeric Bogey insisted. “With current knowledge, we do not know at what level of Pfas there is a proven risk”, but “we cannot wait” to act, he added.
Solutions available to communities
The agency targeted water resources “potentially at risk” and identified eight situations clearly beyond the quality limit, including two on private wells, said Christel Lamat, regional water manager.
Two have since returned below after taking measurements. The town of Rumilly, in Haute-Savoie, where a Tefal factory is located, was forced to give up two contaminated catchments in 2022, after the discovery in its groundwater of PFOA, a substance banned since 2020 due to its carcinogenic nature. . That of Valence commissioned a Pfas treatment station in November.
According to the agency’s director of public health, the two main solutions available to communities are treatment with activated carbon or “connecting to other networks to dilute the resource or deprive themselves of problematic capture”.