4 March 2021

Major fire at a Seveso site: decontamination of an arm of the Seine polluted with hydrocarbons

Séché Urgences Interventions La-Guerche-de-Bretagne Environmental emergencies and risk prevention Emergency interventions and safeguarding Industrial accident assistance

In September 2019, during a major fire on a Seveso site. Séché Urgences Interventions was contacted by site management to mobilize its teams to clean up an arm of the Seine polluted by hydrocarbons

In the first instance, and thanks to our team of chemical experts, we very quickly characterized the customer’s needs in terms of location, accident typology and potential pollutants to be collected.

Our experts intervened on an extended perimeter since we depolluted the darse, an artificial zone created inside the port over a surface area of 72,000m².

Because of the demanding nature of the site we implemented specific techniques:

Skimmers that ran non-stop for a month to recover hydrocarbon oils present on the surface of the Darse.
Fluhsing lances to loosen the hydrocarbons from the riprap and then recover them by the skimmers (komara).
Scuba divers to clean under the dock’s quays.
A POLMAR boom (pollutant-retaining boom) to prevent polluted water overflowing into the Seine.

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Faced with this large-scale project, Séché Urgences Interventions was able to count on the efficiency of its teams and the general mobilization throughout the Séché Group; more than 70 people worked 7 days a week for 4 months on this project.

Following this fire, regulations have evolved and significantly strengthened the requirements for fire risk prevention on SEVESO sites

These emergency plans (POI), internal to the establishments, are made mandatory for Seveso low threshold sites from 1^er January 2023. The minimum frequency of POI exercises is reinforced: every year for high threshold establishments, every three years for low threshold establishments.

The Seveso decree details the content of the plans, concerning in particular support for emergency services intervening on site, restoration and clean-up of the environment, as well as initial sampling after an accident.

An assistance agreement with Séché Urgences interventions can be implemented with any facility subject to a POI.

We benefit from recognized expertise guaranteed by our triple QSE certification (ISO 9001 , ISO 14001 and 45001). N1 and N2 chemical risk training for all personnel involved was an asset for our customer to ensure that operations were carried out in complete safety.

This is a key factor in our success

For all environmental emergencies you can contact us at :

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