STATES OF EMERGENCY - Patrick Lagadec

94 Technological crises and the actors involvedPH. VESSERON: Strangely enough, the matter began by a very sereneperiod. This covered the events of October 1982 - the limited fuss about themeeting of the London Dumping Convention, the declarations by thepresident of the regional council of Lombardy on the subject: "The residuefrom the decontamination of Seveso has been taken by road to a dump, in acountry whose name I will not tell you." The whole thing appeared inFrench and foreign press agency dispatches without raising any of thequestions that common sense should have dictated in such shadowycircumstances.The Ministry of the Environment undertook to clarify the mystery beforeanyone asked him to. On Friday, October 15, the Ministry (Jean-Rémi Gouze,the deputy chief of the industrial environment department) called Hoffmann-La-Roche in Basel. Late on a Friday afternoon, it takes time to get ahold ofsomeone, but it can be done, with a little tenacity. From the guard, he wasswitched over to the official who was on call at home, then finally got thespokesperson. The following Monday, I was to call Hoffmann-La-Roche andrequest written confirmation of the answers we'd been given.Also on the 18th, Jean-Rémi Gouze asked the general direction of customsif there was any trace of this shipment arriving in France. A laconic telexwith a negative answer came the next day.On October 21, Hoffmann-La-Roche sent me a long telex giving extensivedetails on how the residue was packed and on the dump to which it had beensent: " in a deep trench dug in a clayey area," "covered with a three-to-fivemeter-thicklayer of clay," "the area in question is characterized byexceptional seismic stability." La Roche affirmed that the appropriateauthorizations had been scrupulously obtained and obeyed, and concluded thatthe dump was not located in France. It was not, however, more explicit aboutwhere the dump might actually be.In late October, the ministry nevertheless pursued its investigation byhaving the Italian authorities questioned by the French embassy, by askingour regional offices to check whether anyone had requested this type ofauthorization, and by simultaneously putting the same question to operatorsof companies running industrial waste dumps. With uniformly negativeresults.Of course, nobody imagined that the customs agents would have been sureto spot the passage of a truck that didn't represent any noticeablecharacteristics according to their criteria. On the other hand, when acompany like Hoffmann-La-Roche details such precise facts in writing, youhave the impression that you've got something solid.These efforts led us to believe that we had reacted properly, even if no onewas asking us the questions we wanted to be ready for. The onlyinterrogation at the Assemblée Nationale was regarding the old project tomake a sea dump. However, our offices had undertaken an open investigation,found contacts - even outside the established network, and had obtained whatseemed to be trustworthy answers. All that made us feel satisfied. ThatHoffmann-La-Roche provided us with the most detailed response fit in with