The association Heritage and biodiversity meetings And its Facebook page “Discharge Alert – Tracy” continue their citizen monitoring on the landfill Château-Gautier of Gurdebeke has Moulin-sous-Touvent. Activists denounce in particular olfactory nuisances in the villages which adjoin the site, Tracy-le-Val, Tracy-le-Mont And Carlepont. After the publication of three air pollution alerts in the three villages as well as in Caisnes since the meeting on November 15, it has just published field photos.
“We were surprised to see that leachate, commonly called “waste juice”, was flowing onto the road in front of the site, at the edge of the forest. Leachate is a liquid that results from the percolation of water through solid waste, such as that found in landfills or landfills,” environmental activists explain. A “waste juice”, “which we recognize by a stinking, rust-colored flow”, they detail. In these leachates we can generally find “dissolved organic matter, organic micropollutants, heavy metals, etc., studies showing the presence of numerous pollutants in these juices”, they assure. “They are a direct threat to soil and water resources,” says the association. The association lists as possible consequences: “Contamination of groundwater, toxicity for plants, eutrophication of waterways, modification of soil structure, risks for animal and human health.”
How to prevent the flow of these juices?
To mitigate its impacts on the environment and agriculture (many fields being cultivated around the site), the association considers it “essential to properly manage and treat this liquid before it can contaminate the environment.” “This juice is normally collected and placed in a retention basin, covered with geomembranes on the ground. In the case of the Château-Gautier landfill, these basins are open to the sky,” explain the activists who affirm that “the failures of the site’s geomembranes have been admitted for several years.” But on this point data is lacking: “If the defects of the latter, at the time of installation or during filling, can be roughly estimated, we do not have sufficient hindsight to judge their durability… There is no in fact no synthetic material with an infinite lifespan.”
For the association, and in particular for this reason, burying waste is never a sustainable solution: “Even if a membrane is installed, the pollution is simply displaced over time. Leaks of leachate loaded with pollutants and toxic substances can therefore occur in the environment around the landfill site, endangering plants, the animals that ingest them and, at the top of the food chain, humans. they finish.
