'Unbearable smell': Village forced into lockdown after farmer spreads 'pestilential' droppings

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A village in Bas-Rhin was forced to confine itself for about ten days at the end of August, after a farmer sprayed a very smelly pesticide near residential areas. An investigation has also been opened.

It is only today that the problem has been resolved. But for about ten days, the inhabitants of the village of Wolgantzen (Bas-Rhin) have been confined to their homes, report our colleagues at France 3.

“A smell very loaded with ammonia”

The cause ? A farmer who carried out an odorous spreading on the 23rd last August, a period of intense heat. The individual thus deposited chicken droppings right on the edge of the town's houses.

And the smell was so unbearable for the inhabitants that ;rsquo;they confined themselves to their homes, locking their doors and windows tightly. Some, interviewed by our colleagues from France 3, describe “a foul, unbearable smell, heavily loaded with ammonia”.

A woman explained that she had to close her windows for 15 days, “even at night when it was very hot”. Some have chosen to “invest in an air purifier to be able to live at home” while others preferred to leave and go into exile.

An investigation opened

The mayor of Wolgantzen, Jean-Louis Herbaut, reacted to the situation, explaining that he would have “liked the farmer to contact” the town hall “to discuss”. But the farmer does not respond to the requests of the mayor who wants to file a complaint against him for having stored the chicken droppings in the open air without covering them.

If the farmer is not at fault, he remains responsible for “any pollution and olfactory nuisances”, explains the deputy director of the Sainte-Croix-en-Plaine chamber of agriculture, Emmanuel Molard. “He should have taken precautions and not dumped during periods of high heat”, he added to France 3.

An investigation, entrusted to the green brigades, has been opened.