Montreal, April 15, 2021
TRANSMISSION BY EMAIL
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Mr. Benoit Charette, Minister <\/p>\n\n\n\n Minister,<\/p>\n\n\n\n Images captured by citizens over the past few days in Longueuil and broadcast on the social networks<\/a> 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. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In 2018 we had already observed a worrying situation along the Magog River and, after analysis, we carried complaint to the Ministry of the Environment in July 2018<\/a>. The results showed major exceedances of suspended solids. A table of Guide to the development of snow disposal sites and implementation of the Regulation respecting snow disposal sites<\/em><\/a> mentions that it is sufficient to respect one or other of the criteria and not all of the criteria, to comply with the requirements. This is too lax a framework. The Ministry unfortunately limited itself to monitoring the operation with the City of Magog, without however tightening the environmental standards of the site.<\/p>\n\n\n\n However, it is precisely the weakness of the standards which leads to the intense pollution observed in Longueuil. The design criteria must be tightened for certain sites to take into account the fragility of the receiving environment and an inspection, with adequate sampling, must be carried out at critical times and not randomly. Simple settling basins, which are also too small, only allow the main coarse materials to be removed, such as sand and plastic waste. Many other contaminants (chlorides, salts, metals, oils and greases, microplastics, etc.) from contaminated snow escape into watercourses. Such inputs also suddenly modify the physicochemical conditions (e.g. pH, conductivity, dissolved oxygen, temperature) and pose risks of sudden mortality for several aquatic organisms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The standards are the same everywhere, nonsense, when they should be based on environmental objectives for discharges specific to the receiving watercourse, as is scrupulously done for all municipal wastewater treatment systems. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Our other recommendations are summarized as follows:<\/p>\n\n\n\n We ultimately request that the authorizations issued be reviewed so that the modifications made to the Guide in September 2020 are integrated. <\/p>\n\n\n\n We remain available for any additional information.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Please accept, Mr. Minister, the expression of our distinguished greetings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n Alain Saladzius, P.Eng., FIC <\/p>\n\n\n\n Photo: Joy Real\/Unsplash<\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Des images capt\u00e9es par des citoyens depuis quelques jours \u00e0 Longueuil et diffus\u00e9es sur les r\u00e9seaux sociaux montrent une eau pollu\u00e9e sortant d\u2019un bassin de d\u00e9cantation de la Ville. Or, c\u2019est justement la faiblesse des normes qui conduit \u00e0 la pollution intense observ\u00e9e \u00e0 Longueuil. <\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":42978,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[79],"class_list":["post-42896","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-plaintes-lettres-aux-gouvernements","tag-pollution"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fondationrivieres.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42896","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fondationrivieres.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fondationrivieres.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fondationrivieres.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fondationrivieres.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42896"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/fondationrivieres.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42896\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fondationrivieres.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42978"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fondationrivieres.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42896"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fondationrivieres.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42896"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fondationrivieres.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42896"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Ministry of the Environment and the Fight against Climate Change
Marie-Guyart Building
675, boulevard Ren\u00e9-L\u00e9vesque Est, 30e<\/sup> floor
Quebec (Quebec) G1R 5V7<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n\n\n\nSubject: Pollution caused by waste snow \u2013 Request for review of standards and procedures<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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President, Fondation Rivi\u00e8res<\/p>\n\n\n\n