STATES OF EMERGENCY - Patrick Lagadec

The weapons of crisis 19wholesale condemnation, thus ensuring the rapid disintegration of any postaccidentalsituation.All this creates a context that is ready to explode. The case of the electrictransformer fire in Villeurbanne, France near Lyons was a fine example.This case is full of very interesting lessons and will be examined later ingreater detail. The actors involved in it were exceptionally qualified, able toexercise self-criticism and adjust rapidly (even if after the fact, the issue oftheir potential over-reaction was raised).Cusset-Villeurbanne: Just after the accident, the tone adopted was reassuring: the 300liters of PCB-laden askarel had been captured by the built-in retention basin. But whenthe basin leaked, these assurances proved to be ill-founded. The operator had thehonesty and the courage to admit very quickly that he had been wrong - a first - butthe context was even more eloquent. The riposte came immediately, and its intensityhad much to say about the general atmosphere created by a technological failure. Theingrained defiance that would have to be dealt with in the future radiated from theconclusion this July 4, 1986 Liberation editorial:"Of course, as they always do in this type of business, EDF and other officials, as wellas the ministries in charge of such issues, have been overwhelmed by events. Why?Because they were happy to look the other way when operators took the liberty ofinstalling PCB transformers without retention systems that could be counted on toprevent any leakage of the substance into the ground. Because they underestimated thechances of an accident. Because they lied when they said the floor of the transformerwas leak-proof. Because they fooled themselves and everyone else into believing thedanger was past as soon as the fire was out. Because they still don't know today theexact magnitude of the leaks, or their long-term consequences. And simply becauseaskarel and PCBs are being tested, not in the laboratory, but in vivo in the suburbs ofLyons, on guinea pigs who would have said no if they could."Such a context can be corrected, but that takes serious efforts. For onething, habits are hard to break. For another, once they are broken, it isdifficult to spread the word that a change has occurred. Hoffmann-La Rochelearned this the hard way through its experience with the Seveso waste drums.The firm, which was built around a tradition of secrecy, had certainly strivento develop a more open corporate culture. But when the crisis hit, theseefforts were trampled. The general reaction was, "That's Hoffmann-La Rochefor you!" One official cited an Austrian expression to this author, saying,"Our past has caught up with us".And the past can be a heavy burden. What statements or intimations havebeen made about the absence of any risk? Openness is very recent incorporate policy. As a result, serious reticences remain, doubtless rooted inturn in deeper apprehensions. After Three Mile Island, an EDF-Louis Harrispoll indicated that 80% of French citizens living near a nuclear power plantbelieved that "if an accident happens in France, the public won't be told thetruth," and 61% felt "such an accident may already have taken place, butpains were taken to keep it a secret" (6).