Reinforced controls and reduction in PFAS releases, the State continues its surveillance south of Lyon

After adopting its regional roadmap for perennial pollutants, known as PFAS, last April, the government is continuing its monitoring and controls implemented south of Lyon. On Wednesday, July 2, during the 15th monitoring committee meeting attended by local elected officials, the Rhône prefecture presented the results and prospects of investigations conducted by the departmental interministerial unit dedicated to managing the presence of PFAS south of Lyon.

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While Arkema was forced to suspend its use of the 6:2 FTS booster at the end of 2024 following a prefectural decree, the initial results are encouraging. The company's total PFAS releases are in fact 3 kilos per month, a decrease of 99%, the Rhône prefecture indicated in a press release issued Wednesday, July 2. It also specifies that the residual release comes "essentially" from the remobilization of the groundwater table. Since March 2025, groundwater controls have also been strengthened by the addition of new piezometers, a device for measuring the level of water tables. At the same time, the list of monitored PFAS now includes TFA, "in response to questions from elected officials and the public," the government services added.

As for Daikin, another company implicated, its emissions are "very low" , around two grams per month, mainly composed of PFHxA. The latter will no longer be used at the end of the year, the company having found a substitute product.

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At the end of June, Arkema submitted to the Rhône prefecture a study "interpreting the state of the environment" (IEM), prescribed by prefectural decree in 2023, to assess the impregnation of the environment "over several kilometers, at the level of the soil and vegetable gardens, and to determine the potential effects on health." After examining these results, the State services indicate that they will reassess the health recommendations issued in March 2024 (non-consumption of eggs and poultry meat, fruits and vegetables and water from vegetable gardens and private wells within a perimeter of 500 m around the maximum fallout). Arkema has also decided to close access to the allotments it owns and has informed the users concerned without waiting for this analysis.

After detecting a "significant" concentration of PFAS in the groundwater beneath the Port of Lyon Édouard-Herriot, several analysis campaigns were also carried out by the Compagnie Nationale du Rhône (CNR), the site's concession holder. Contamination was found to be particularly significant in certain areas of the port and in the sediments located at the bottom of the docks. This is believed to be due in particular to the 1987 fire at one of the oil depots. "The origin of other PFAS pollution remains undetermined at this stage," the Rhône prefecture specifies, however.

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The investigations will continue until 2026. Quarterly analyses until the end of 2025 have been requested, as well as a vulnerability study "aimed at identifying the uses of the water table" by the end of the year and a historical study for the beginning of 2026 to identify the origin of this pollution.

The Regional Health Agency (ARS) is conducting tests for PFAS in drinking water, the results of which are reported monthly. One water catchment in Ternay is found to be non-compliant. Work to install a treatment plant is underway, the government reports. A private well in Vénissieux is also undergoing enhanced monitoring. Five other situations have been resolved in the department, the Rhône prefecture reports.

Read also: Lyon: a collective civil complaint soon to be filed against Arkema and Daikin in the PFAS affair