The water consumption of the tap will be banned in the next few days in four municipalities in the Museo and 12 of the Ardenas after the discovery of abnormal PFA levels, called “eternal pollutants,” the prefectures said.
The water consumption of the tap for drinking or preparing for the bottles will be prohibited from July 10 in twelve municipalities of the Ardenas with a total of 2,800 inhabitants, said the prefecture of the Ardenas this Friday, July 4 in a press release signed with the Granestest Regional Health Agency.
Before that, the same measure will apply on Saturday to four municipalities in El Muse, 620 inhabitants with its four, according to a press release from the Prefecture published at night. Neither of the two prefectures specifies the duration of this prohibition.
All the villages involved in the Mouse are located on the edge of the same river, the leisure. The communes affected in the Ardenas are in the south of the department, near the Museo River or one of its tributaries.
Various harmful effects on human health
These restrictions follow the discovery of PFA levels higher than the legal limit of 100 nanograms per liter (Ng/L) in distributed water. A law on eternal pollutants promulgated in early 2025 establishes in particular to include PFA in the control of drinking water.
Ardennes’s prefecture recognizes that, in the municipalities of the affected department, “the total concentration of the main 20 pfa exceeds, in a persistent and very important way, the regulatory limit.”
According to France 3 and the media reveal, in 17 municipalities, between the Meuse and the Ardenas, the PFA levels detected exceed this limit of 3 to 27 times, up to 2,729 ng/l in Villy (Ardennes). A record in France.
The source used by the people of Villly is so contaminated that “we cannot treat it, we cannot update the rate,” laments Richard Pilbiche, its mayor.
PFA, for per-are and polyfluoquilada substances, called “eternal pollutants”, can have harmful effects on human health: higher levels of cholesterol, cancers, effects on fertility and the development of the fetus, etc.
“Contamination could be linked to spread”
Used massively in the industry since the mid -twentieth century, for example, to make non -stick stoves, waterproof or cosmetics clothes, they are, as their name, they are extremely difficult to eliminate once in water or floors.
In this case, “pollution could be linked to propagation, in agricultural plots located near the cattle water basins, the paper mud that probably contains PFA,” according to the two prefectures, although “this origin remains to be confirmed.”
Richard Pilibiche accuses a stationery plant around the surroundings of having made, beyond the propagation made in the surrounding fields, “whole whole (paper mud) on earth just above our source”, causing these extremely high rates.
The prefecture of the Museum asks the municipalities in question, “people responsible for the production and distribution of water, to guarantee the distribution of bottles to the inhabitants.”
For Villy, this represents an expense of 18,000 euros for a year. “We will pay the water 100 times more” than if it were captured at the source, he says.
The prefect of the Ardenas orders the affected municipalities “to establish, as soon as possible, an action plan to satisfactorily reduce the PFA rate in the water and re -make water according to the current standards.”
Source: BFM TV
