Nature reserve still contaminated

MORE THAN 50,200km of pipeline across France is to undergo increased safety checks after an explosion left a gusher contaminating five hectares of a nature reserve on the edge of the Camargue.

More than 66,000 tonnes of oil-contaminated soil had to be lifted from the Coussouls de Crau site in Bouches-du-Rhône after the accident in August 2009.

Now Chantal Jouanno, the ecology secretary, and ecology minister Jean-Louis Borloo have pushed through measures to ensure that ageing pipe-lines, some of which are up to 70 years old, are still fit to be used.

Checks on the 36,500km of gas pipeline, 9,800km of oil pipeline and 3,900km of chemical pipeline will be carried out every six years, instead of 10 years.

Any pipes that are not perfectly round – leaving a weakness in the welded joint that led to the Crau rupture – must be reinforced before 2012.

The 749km pipe from the south to Karlsruhe in Germany needed 80 sections of one-metre diameter pipe reinforced.

Ms Jouanno visited the Crau site a year after the explosion to see the environmental changes.

Despite the vast amount of soil already dug up, there is thought to be between 1,000 and 2,500 tonnes of oil still in the subsoil.