STATES OF EMERGENCY - Patrick Lagadec

Ph. Vesseron: The Seveso waste drums 95the idea that each industrial leader had to be able to account personally forthe conditions in which waste from his plants is eliminated. In short, we werealmost sorry that no one else was wondering about it.The investigation went on for a month and a half with hardly any newelements. Looking back after the fact, I notice that already on November 5,Senator Luigi Noè, who was in charge of the special Seveso office, haddeclared to our embassy that the truck we were looking for had, "after a stopin Marseille, arrived in northern France, in Saint Quentin [near Anguilcourtle-Sart],where the shipment had been stored several days, awaiting theauthorizations from the country of final destination." But at the time, we readthis passage in the light of the telex La Roche had sent to us on October 21.Nobody was very interested in Marseille or Saint Quentin.In fact, this was a period in which the matter was dissipated in the wheelsof the administrative works: because of the way our Direction for PollutionPrevention is structured, the question simultaneously concerned the unitsinvolved with water dumps, with waste, toxic issues, and chemicalmanufacturers. When a topic is in the news, everybody gets into the act, andwe often see friendly competition develop (administrations have innovativecapacities that really don't match their typical image). Though it can also veerinto feudal warfare. By the same token, as soon as an issue is no longerurgent and doesn't precisely fit anyone's job description, the information mayvery well not be used fast enough.In any case, Marseille and Saint Quentin came into the foreground of ourpreoccupations on December 10, 1982. That day, Customs called Jean-RémiGouze about a Bernard Paringaux who lived in Marseille and operated adump in Saint Quentin. A two-pronged action was then launched by Customsin Marseille and by Jean-Rémi Gouze in Saint Quentin. I never did know forsure how the name of Mannesmann's sub-contractor first emerged in thismurky business - a Customs informant in Rome, so it was said.At Environment, the emergence of Bernard Paringaux's name was a bigsurprise. Of course we'd known for some time that he had played anintermediary role in several touchy waste disposal cases, but nobody expectedto find him in a matter that Hoffmann-La-Roche had wanted to handle like ahigh-tech affair. It was a little like finding out that the main plumbing in anuclear reactor was made with old pipes from the local junk yard.But alas, when the dump at Saint Quentin was checked, the Seveso drumsweren't there either, although we uncovered several other turpitudes. As forParingaux, he refused to give any details. This is probably whenEnvironment and Customs made their first big mistake. They should havetaken legal steps, not just by phone but in writing, and without limitingthemselves to the formal violations. Too often, administrative bodies forgetthat when their anticipatory measures have failed, it's up to the law to decidewhat should be done. It would seem obvious that you don't make a rulewithout thinking about what will happen if someone breaks it. In lawenforcement, it is the courts, first and foremost, who handle cases of