PRESS RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Montreal, November 17, 2016 – One year after the Montreal spills, now known as the flushgate, the City of Quebec announced four "planned" spills between November 22, 2016 and February 2017. The City took up several elements of the City of Montreal's argument, mentioning a lack of consequences given various nebulous factors, for conclude that the operation is comparable to an “oil change”.
However, the Fondation Rivières argues that this reasoning does not take into account the cumulative effects on the river and that it is possible to do better. We note, upon examination of the two documents made public on the City's website, that an effort should be made in planning activities and disclosing information on certain technical aspects of the file.
These improvements are desirable as much for the city of Quebec as for any other municipality:
- Inform the population of the exact times when the work will take place in order to optimize efforts to minimize impacts. The City should also plan for work at night, when flow rates are minimal, even if it means carrying out the work over more than one night.
- Ask the population to avoid throwing non-degradable solids down the toilet. Also, relevant institutions, businesses and industries (ICI) should be involved, in addition to the population, so that organizations that can, retain their effluent during spills.
- Modify the work schedule so that those planned at the Limoilou and Saint-Charles pumping stations are carried out at the same time as those at the Eastern wastewater treatment plant. These spills total 25 million liters and would then be canceled by such an approach since the water would only be released at one time;
- Offer incentives to contractors so that they complete the work more quickly or offer an improved work method;
- Publicly disclose technical information related to the work, under the seal of the engineer in charge. The description should follow a presentation consistent with best practices in the engineering sector. Information currently made public[1],[2] essentially relates anecdotal comparisons regarding the Montreal spills. This information does not offer the level of precision now demanded by the population;
- Identify all the working methods evaluated during the feasibility stage (temporary pumping, temporary pipe, parallel equipment, etc.) and the reasons why these were not retained (safety, cost, impractical , etc.);
- Make public a copy of the authorization requests, including the studies, responses and authorizations from the ministries involved. Considering that certain works do not require authorization, complete information helps avoid any misunderstanding.
The Fondation Rivières offers its full collaboration to any municipality, particularly Quebec City, to develop best practices in the management of its water.
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For informations :
Alain Saladzius
President
514 924-2013
presidency@fondationrivieres.org
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[1] City of Quebec, press release, November 15, 2016:
[2] City of Quebec, Maintenance work on sanitation works, November 15, 2016
