PRESS RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Montreal, April 14, 2021 – Images captured by citizens over the past two days in Longueuil and broadcast on the social networks show polluted water leaving a City settling basin. The outfall flows directly into a stream of clear water, in the Tremblay woodland, an important wildlife refuge for the chorus frog in Quebec. Dead frogs and fish were observed there and complete silence reigned while normally the cry of tree frogs is heard in the middle of the spring season. The Fondation Rivières asks the Minister of the Environment and the Fight against Climate Change to review the authorizations issued by his ministry and which ensure that snow deposits allow plumes of pollution to flow into waterways.
For Mr. Patrick R. Bourgeois who went to the site to check the origin of the contamination, “We cannot tolerate a snow dump, a mountain of pollution if ever there was one, flowing into a wildlife reserve, killing chorus frogs in the process. It is high time to review the management of these deposits. I filmed what ordinary citizens would never have seen, in addition to industrial yards and waste right up to the shore, without any protection limits being respected. An environmental devastation in what should be a wildlife paradise,” he declares.
According to the Fondation Rivières, government standards must be revised and take into account the fragility of certain environments. Simple settling basins, which are also too small, only allow sand to be removed. Many other contaminants (chlorides, salts, metals, oils and greases, microplastics, etc.) from contaminated snow escape into watercourses. The standards are the same regardless of the receiving environment, nonsense. The Foundation has also supported complaint to the Ministry of the Environment in July 2018 in a similar file located on the banks of the Magog River. The analyzes obtained showed major exceedances of suspended solids. The Ministry would then have undertaken closer monitoring of the operation of the site without, however, tightening the environmental standards of the site.
For Alain Saladzius, engineer and president of Fondation Rivières, “the treatment of heavily polluted water leaving snow depots must be improved. The design criteria are too weak and do not take into account the receiving environment. Toxicity tests should be applicable because fish mortalities have been observed. This year, the speed of the snow melting reminds us that climate change is causing upheavals that must now be taken into account,” he concludes.
The former mayor of Huntingdon, Stéphane Gendron, confirms “I witnessed this aberration for years, the Ministry of the Environment authorized us to discharge water from the snow deposit into a sanctioned watercourse which flowed in the Châteauguay River. It was totally inconsistent, but on the pretext of lack of funds, everything is acceptable. It’s extremely embarrassing.”
- Video of the contaminated watercourse
- Snow deposit video
- Complaint from Fondation Rivières concerning the Magog 2018 snow depot
For informations :
André Bélanger
General Manager
514 295-1194
direction@fondationrivieres.org
Photo: Clay Leconey/Unsplash
