2023-11-16 08:26:03
Eric Van Sevenant has an impressive CV. This former chief of staff of Jean-Claude Marcourt (PS) and Rudy Demotte (PS) is also the president of SPGE, the public water management company in charge of wastewater sanitation in Wallonia.
As noted by our colleagues from La Libre Belgique, Eric Van Sevenant came to the Parliament of Wallonia on October 24 alongside Céline Tellier (Ecolo), the Walloon Minister of the Environment. He had spoken on a completely different subject in his “capacity as advisor to Madam Minister“, had specified the president of the Environment committee, Jean-Pierre Lepine (PS). At the time, this had sparked a controversy and the cabinet had to clarify that Mr. van Sevenant “is in no way attached to the Cabinet of the Minister has and any title” and that the terms “advisers or experts are the terms used in Parliament“.
Whatever the case, the man seems close to the Tellier cabinet. However, according to the version provided by Minister Ecolo, no one informed her of the seriousness of the contamination in Chièvres: “At no time, I will say it face to face, did I receive information of an imminent threat to health.”
The office was no longer alerted.
However, on October 5, 2023, we received the first responses from Céline Tellier’s office. Here is full answers. And in these elements provided by the minister’s spokesperson, a doubt remains. The cabinet appears to be informed of the action plan requested by the SPW on June 16, 2022 and the response provided by the SWDE: “From the moment the administration requested an action plan and following receipt of it, the cabinet was no longer alerted to problematic measures requiring intervention.“
Yes the cabinet n’a plus been alerted, it has been alerted before. And receiving the action plan would be justification for no longer worrying regarding the problem. This paragraph raises questions regarding Céline Tellier’s statements in the Environment Committee this Tuesday, November 14.
Would it have changed version along the way? In any case, the minister did not in any way integrate this letter into her timeline retracing the precise chronology of events even though we know that she was aware of it at least on October 5. Our initial questions were sent on September 11, 2023. And we asked to be able to carry out an interview with the minister on the Chièvres file on June 29, 2023 already.
We contacted Céline Tellier’s office to clarify this point. The firm persists and signs and maintains the version that was presented by Céline Tellier during the hearing of the Environment Commission of the Parliament of Wallonia.
Eric Van Sevenant was therefore well aware of the situation. Why, at the height of contamination between October 2021 and March 2023, will the SWDE not inform the population and the municipalities concerned? The President of the SWDE steering committee sometimes presented as “advise” by Céline Tellier failed to inform his supervisory minister? These questions remain unanswered.
The SWDE management committee provided us with a detailed response. We share it in its entirety.
The SWDE never specifically addressed the minister
The SWDE Management Committee says it has never denied being informed of the problem. He specifies that the SPW is the direct interlocutor of the SWDE in this matter and that “The SWDE therefore never specifically addressed the minister on this precise point.“
Finally, to justify the lack of communication with the population, the SWDE wants to remind us that “At no time was the existence of an imminent health hazard identified or communicated to water distributors in the event of exceeding the future PFAS standard.“
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