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Technical installations are incriminated in health damage that they are suspected of causing among residential populations living nearby. These various incriminations are referred to here as complaints regarding environmental health as they concern relations between the health of residents and their living environment. As they are not validated by epidemiological expertise, there is no grounds for public decision-making in the name of health imperatives. Based on the description of a range of complaints in Brittany, the article analyzes their process of construction and the ways in which health-related arguments develop. The contribution of local knowledge supporting these complaints is discussed in terms of its capacity to take part in the process of public decision-making and in the involvement of the association of concerned communities in the process of epidemiological expertise.