PRESS RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Montreal, October 27, 2021 – For a second year, Fondation Rivières is making public a tool allowing you to discover the list of municipalities that stand out in terms of the intensity of their wastewater spills in 2020. It also updated, on its website, the interactive map of discharges with new data from 2020 which reveals that there were nearly 53,000 wastewater spills last year in Quebec.
The sad 2020 ranking highlights the intensity of spills in nearly 700 municipalities, which makes it possible to distinguish those which have improved since 2019 from those where the situation has deteriorated. This year, we are innovating through the use of powerful software that allows us to compare the performance of municipalities of similar size and also to know their ranking in their respective regions.
Parmi les grandes villes, Trois-Rivières devance tout juste Longueuil en première position dans le classement des 10 plus grandes villes du Québec. Elle occupe cette position parce que la Ville a connu un bris majeur en septembre 2020 qui a provoqué un déversement continu durant 16 jours. N’eût été de cet accident, Longueuil serait encore une fois la pire ville au Québec en ce qui a trait au déversement des eaux usées et ce, pour une deuxième année consécutive.
We can also see a significant deterioration in Lévis and Trois-Rivières between 2019 and 2020. We also note an improvement in Laval, Quebec, Gatineau and Saguenay. On the surface, Sherbrooke presents positive results, but in reality, the City is given a D grade in terms of the quality of the measure, since it has not completed the installation of electronic recorders on nearly half of his works overflowing.
The quality of the measurement illustrates the degree of transparency of municipalities, since it indicates the proportion of major overflow structures that are equipped with electronic recorders. A municipality that properly measures the intensity of its spills is therefore at a disadvantage.
As for medium-sized cities, it is the municipalities connected to the Longueuil agglomeration network which take pride of place in this sad list, followed by Thetford Mines, Saint-Hyacinthe, Shawinigan, Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu and Mercier. Note a notable improvement for Victoriaville. Mid-sized municipalities have absolutely unacceptable per capita intensity levels and this is probably where most of the work remains to be done.
As for small municipalities, Saint-Tite, Caplan, Marsoui, Waterloo, Manseau and Chandler sit at the top of this sad list. Saint-Tite and Manseau saw their performance deteriorate between 2019 and 2020, just like Saint-Joseph-du-Lac and Saint-Césaire. Note an improvement in L'Ange-Gardien, Disraeli, Bedford, Normandin and Saint-Gabriel-de-Brandon. Montebello, which topped the list in 2019, ranks 30th this year, an indication that the source of the spills has been partly resolved there: a stream that flowed into the sewer network.
Cette année, le triste palmarès nous donne accès à des informations qui n’étaient pas visibles auparavant, dont la qualité de la mesure et le nombre de journées dans l’année où il y a eu des déversements. La Ville de Québec, par exemple, a connu 318 jours avec des déversements sur les 365 jours de l’année.
No notable improvement since last year and permission to pollute for another ten years
Le nombre de déversements s’élevait à 52 794 en 2020, contre 60 663 en 2019. Cette diminution s’explique par des précipitations moindres en 2020. La météo plus clémente a aussi permis une réduction globale de l’intensité des déversements, mais ces réductions ne sont pas structurelles, puisqu’on autorise encore et toujours la construction domiciliaire sans exiger une augmentation de la capacité des infrastructures, comme on a pu le constater avec le cas de Saint-Lin-des-Laurentides.
The results are neither worse nor better than last year and they are not about to improve. In a ministerial position of September 22, 2021, the Ministry of the Environment and the Fight against Climate Change (MELCC) recalls that its objective is not to reduce wastewater spills, but simply not to increase them. the number beyond 2014 levels. In this same ministerial position, it grants municipalities until January 1, 2030 to achieve this objective.
“In other words, municipalities have permission to increase pollution in our rivers for the next ten years. The MELCC announces that in ten years, it will crack down on those which have not reduced their pollution level to that of 2014. Why wait until 2030? Why not target delinquent municipalities and tackle the most glaring problems now? That does not make any sense. As the rankings and the map demonstrate, we know exactly where the most glaring problems lie. Prime Minister Legault likes to call himself pragmatic. How pragmatic is such a wall-to-wall measure?” – André Bélanger, general manager of Fondation Rivières.
Visit our website to discover the ranking of the 10 largest cities in Quebec, as well as the TOPS 50 municipalities ranking, according to your selection. If you want to take your analysis a little further, the expert ranking is also at your disposal with more indicators to consult.
About the Spill Intensity Index
Le triste palmarès est réalisé sur la base de l’indice d’intensité des déversements développé l’an dernier par Fondation Rivières. Cet indice donne une idée de l’importance des déversements puisqu’il tient compte de la taille des ouvrages qui ont débordé et de la durée des déversements. En divisant cet indice d’intensité des déversements par le nombre d’habitants, il est alors possible de comparer les performances des municipalités entre elles, peu importe leur taille.
- 30 -
Updated: November 8, 2022
For informations :
Christian Généreux
Responsible for communications, development and mobilization
514 272-2666, ext. 302
communications@fondationrivieres.org
