Depollution operation in urban environment

During the construction of a building project in the very heart of Marseilles (13), ORTEC Generale de Depollution worked on a site where the soils were contaminated by heavy metals.

After marking out the area and making it safe, our teams used a mechanical shovel to excavate the earth, polluted mainly by arsenic. Considering the concentrations observed in certain points, strict measures were taken to protect the employees (wearing of individual protective equipment). The earthworks had to be carried out very progressively in order to guarantee the stability of the land and nearby dwellings, and to allow construction work to continue on the foundations of the unpolluted land.

During the soil depollution operations, two old disused underground tanks were discovered. To make these structures safe, ORTEC Generale de Depollution also carried out the pumping, cleaning and evacuation to an approved line of the contaminated water inside.

A total of 500 metric tons of contaminated earth was evacuated to a category 1 storage line. The final condition of the land was checked by acceptance analyses in the excavations, which enabled the building project and the construction operations to continue.