The City of Montreal is holding a public consultation on the future of water to help it formulate its new water strategy! All Montrealers are invited to give their opinion on the issues facing the metropolis: repeated flooding, discharge of wastewater into the river even in dry weather, significant leaks in the network, etc.
The challenge is great and the issues complex. Among them, adaptation to climate change and resilience constitute the transversal elements which must, in our opinion, be found at the heart of the reflection with a view to the next Montreal water strategy. This is what we defend in our brief Green and blue spaces: adaptation at the heart of Montreal's new water strategy. We have extracted 10 ideas that can promote resilience for the future of water in Montreal.
Our 10 resilience ideas for the future of water in Montreal
Green and blue spaces have the power to represent pillars of adaptation and resilience to climate change. Ultimately, they will both serve as an oasis of freshness and will be sources of collective pride which will support all of the strategy's actions.
Green spaces
With climate change, extreme precipitation events are becoming more frequent and more intense. These enormous volumes of water overload sewage systems, causing flooding and immense stress for the population. To mitigate these issues, Montreal would benefit from focusing on green spaces and adopting the sponge city model, while implementing these few related recommendations.
1. Implement an overflow reduction plan
Before even thinking about ways to reduce overflows, let's think about the objectives! In Montreal, more than 1,200 overflows occur each year following heavy rains. The frequency and quantities of water overflowed annually since 2016 demonstrate a certain stagnation, consistent with the City's objectives in its overflow management plan.
This plan is a requirement from the Ministry of the Environment imposed on any city that wishes to connect new residences to its “unitary” sewer network (a single conduit combining sanitary water and rainwater, unlike the “separative” sewer system ").
The problem is that this plan is not demanding enough: it simply asks not to increase the number of overflows following the addition of new connections, rather than aiming for a reduction. In a context of increasing extreme precipitation events, an attempt to stabilize or even moderately reduce the overflow volumes is not realistic or sustainable in the long term since the efforts deployed risk being eclipsed by the additional volumes of rain.
Let us have an ambitious plan to reduce overflows by identifying priority areas for access to swimming around the Island which will at least maintain and, if possible, improve the quality of water in the banks while experiencing more and more episodes of extreme precipitation.
2. Accelerate and prioritize the correction of reverse connections
Located mainly in the west of the island, the “separative” sewer system has the advantage of avoiding overloading the network during rainy periods. However, it also involves a risk of error when connecting residences. Result: sanitary water is released directly into the environment without treatment; a real scourge for several Montreal streams.
Although a program to detect and correct inverted connections was implemented by the City of Montreal in 2007, 62 of the 585 stormwater networks still had inverted connections last year. The correction of problematic networks is progressing very slowly with only 7 networks corrected since 2016, especially since the number of problematic networks awaiting correction has increased by 9 over the same period.
Among the reasons that could explain this stagnation, The Press recently highlighted the laxity of the Ministry of Municipal Affairs (MAMH) in the management of this issue as well as the difficulties encountered by municipalities in financing corrective work or in forcing citizens to do so (when the connection is located on the private portion of the land).
Let us accelerate and prioritize the correction of inverted connections by sectors that could affect the quality of indoor (streams) and outdoor (river and Rivière des Prairies) water that can be used for uses, such as swimming and water sports, in order to catch up with the water level. fixed linked cities.
Update: ADOPTED to Measure R-17!
3. Create a flood risk management tool
It is crucial to inform the population of the risk to which they are exposed in the event of flooding and to give them the means to protect themselves. Let's be inspired byCity of Fredericton online flood risk management tool! Montreal already has a climate hazard map which it would be entirely possible to improve.
Based on the climate hazard vulnerability map, let's develop a tool like Fredericton and deploy an awareness campaign to allow citizens to take concrete actions in favor of better stormwater management in order to limit the impacts floods.
Update: ADOPTED to Measure R-19!
4. Prioritize rainwater management developments according to their impact
In Montreal, as elsewhere in Quebec, we promote the rapid evacuation of precipitation using paved surfaces and concrete pipes. It is time to move to an urban planning model focused on the retention and absorption of precipitation in the ground through green infrastructure.
Montreal is already moving in the right direction with the recent construction of several rainwater bio-retention structures and parks that also serve as refreshing gathering places, including Pierre-Dansereau Park and Place des Fleurs-de-Macadam. That said, more would be needed to bring about a notable reduction in wastewater overflows across the City.
Let's implement a process for prioritizing rainwater management developments by taking into account the volume of rainwater that will be diverted from the sewers during the renovation of parks and public spaces.
Update: ADOPTED to Measure R-14!
5. Better support citizen initiatives for surface demineralization
Montreal should also put in place mechanisms to encourage citizen initiatives to eliminate impermeable surfaces or poor drainage. Such actions are already promoted as part of the green alley program, but their implementation requires that citizen groups and the eco-neighborhood seek additional funding from provincial and federal authorities, making the process more cumbersome.
Citizens can help reduce the risk of flooding through simple actions such as redirecting gutters towards grassy areas rather than directly onto the asphalt.
Let's simplify and improve the financing of citizen demineralization initiatives by prioritizing projects that have the greatest potential for capturing rainwater.
Update: ADOPTED to Measure R-20!
Blue spaces
By limiting the volumes of water that would otherwise risk flooding and contaminating rivers and streams, green spaces pave the way for the use of blue spaces by as many people as possible. Because yes, should we remember that Montreal is bordered by water on both sides? Montreal would have everything to gain from leveraging this unique characteristic to become a model for access to water!
6. Adjust our perception of sanitation and access to water
Water quality is one of the main obstacles mentioned by the City of Montreal when it comes to providing more access to water around the island of Montreal. It is true that the bacteriological quality of water deteriorates in some places after heavy rains due to wastewater overflows, but let's keep in mind that this degradation is temporary and relatively predictable.
Let's make sanitation and access to water driving forces to move both forward, rather than subsequent steps.
7. Evaluate the security of access where water is of good quality in dry weather
Outside of periods of heavy rain, historical RSMA data indicates that there are approximately one in two sites, i.e. 57 out of 115 sites, where at least 90 % samples show water quality. water for swimming. More than a hundred sites demonstrate water conducive to indirect contact water activities, such as paddle boarding, which is growing in popularity, regardless of the weather!
To obtain a clear picture of potential access to swimming and water activities, let's take steps to evaluate the speed of the current and the safety of access where the water quality is good in dry weather.
8. Alert the population in the event of overflows
Montreal has telemetric equipment to identify the origin and duration of discharges in real time at overflow points, in addition to automatic alerts sent by email during overflows or heavy rain as part of special events. However, this alert capacity remains relatively little known to the public and the City would benefit from making this information more easily accessible.
Let's set up an overflow alert system and visualization of water quality results accessible to everyone, in the form of an online platform, in order to allow the population to make an informed decision before swimming and the practice of nautical activities.
9. Plan future access to water in order to restore social justice
Access to water in cities is necessary, especially for populations living near heat islands. To Montreal, surface temperatures indicate a dire need for cooling sources especially in the center and center-east.
However, the three free public swimming accesses in Montreal are all located in the west. With the exception of Verdun beach, they are difficult to access by public transport. The fact remains that in certain places, the water quality is not up to par and efforts must still be made to remedy this.
Faced with the frequency and increasing intensity of heatwaves, let us plan the next access to water so as to allow vulnerable populations living near heat islands, that is to say in the center and center-east , to cool off.
10. Make the Jacques-Cartier basin the next place to swim in Montreal
It's been 20 years since a crowd of citizens made a symbolic jump into the water of the Old Port of Montreal, during the Grand Splash, to demand access to water. Mayor Valérie Plante also committed to this during the electoral campaign.
It is not for nothing that it is precisely in the Jacques-Cartier basin that the mobilization is taking place: this basin is a strategic place for access to water at multiple levels. It makes it possible to restore social justice, the water is of good quality in dry weather, the current is not a danger (unlike the Quai de l'Horloge project abandoned in 2020) in addition to representing economic benefits for the City, considering that the Old Port is a coveted place for visitors from all directions.
Share these 10 recommendations with the City of Montreal!
If you are a citizen of the metropolis, we encourage you to select the ideas that inspire you the most and share them with the City. Here's how :
- In the form of memory until September 27, 2023. Create a document into which you will copy and paste the ideas, taking care to include your name and contact details. Once finished, we suggest you export it to PDF. This document constitutes your dissertation. The word may seem intimidating, but it's just a synonym for "recommendations." This is the best of the three ways proposed by the City to participate in the consultation (the online survey focuses on taxation and other issues that we consider non-priority and the short notice is really short). Send your dissertation to commissions@montreal.ca.
- In the form of short opinion on water issues until October 4, 2023. This is not the best option to fully express yourself since you will be limited to 140 characters, but it gives you more time.
