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.

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.

• Montreal's raw sewage dump makes international headlines

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

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.

• Flushgate a success but lacked 'social acceptability:' Denis Coderre

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

• Bacteria in St. Lawrence River after sewage dump nothing out of the ordinary, experts say

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.