Sound familiar? Quebec City preps for raw sewage dump - Action News
Home WebMail Friday, November 22, 2024, 08:15 PM | Calgary | -11.3°C | Regions Advertise Login | Our platform is in maintenance mode. Some URLs may not be available. |
Montreal

Sound familiar? Quebec City preps for raw sewage dump

Quebec City will release 135 million litres of untreated water into the St. Lawrence River starting next week, to do maintenance on water pumping and treatment stations.

1 year after Montreal's flushgate, Quebec City plans its own mass discharge of wastewater

Sewage being dumped into a body of water.
Quebec City is planning its own dump of raw sewage into the St. Lawrence River in order to repair water-pumping and treatment stations. However, the release will be a fraction of the size of Montreal's 2015 flushgate. (iStock)

Quebec City will release 135 million litres of untreated water into the St. Lawrence River, starting next week.

The measure will allow city workers to conduct maintenance work on two water treatmentand two pumping stations.

Mayor Rgis Labeaume saidthe city has no other option but to do the repairs.

"If it breaks down, it will be ten times worse," he said.

Similar to Montreal, but not the same

The plan may sound vaguely familiar.

In October 2015, Montreal dumped 4.9 billion litres of raw sewage into the river.

Flushgate, as thatcontroversial operation became known, made headlines around the world.

The Montreal sewage dump,however, was 36 times larger than the one Quebec City will perform.

Quebec City Mayor Regis Labeaume says the municipality is planning the sewage dump at the time of year when it will have the least impact on the environment. (Jacques Boissinot/The Canadian Press)

Labeaume saidthe discharge of raw sewage is not exceptional, but after the storm of protest that preceded the Montreal operation, he said it couldn't be done quietly.

"It's the Montreal events that lead us to explain to the public what it is," saidRgisLabeaume."We call that Montreal syndrome."

Environmental impact negligible, says mayor

Labeaume saidthe sewage dump is being done at a time of year when it will cause the least damage, and the municipality saidthe dump willhave a negligibleimpact on the environment.

The raw sewage released will amountto 0.1 per cent of all the wastewater Quebec City treats on average, annually.

The cityis asking residents to reduce their use of water during the period of the repair workin order to curb the amount of wastewater that will be released.

Work on the water treatment station in the Sainte-Foy neighbourhood is scheduled to begin on Nov.22 and is tolast for 14 hours.

Repairs on astation at the Baie de Beauport start on Nov.23and should last 13 hours.

The shutdown of apumping station at Poste Saint-Pascalnear the Baie de Beauport is scheduled to last sixhours. Work will start on Dec. 1 or 2.

The municipality is also planning to undertake repair work inLimoilou next February.

with files from Radio-Canada