Quebec calls off meeting with Blainville mayor on toxic waste dump expansion

The Quebec authorities is backing retired of a meeting it had acceptable for contiguous with the mayor of Blainville, Que., to sermon the enlargement of a hazardous discarded dump.

In a connection to Radio-Canada, Natural Resources Minister Maïté Blanchette Vézina cited the mayor's "change successful absorption regarding the topics she wanted to address."

Mayor Liza Poulin has resisted the enlargement project. She says the onshore eyed by the authorities is located in a ample peat bog, an ecosystem of precocious ecological value.

Bill 93, tabled by the province last month, would unit Blainville to cede the onshore to the government so American institution Stablex tin physique a sixth dumping site — thing the institution says needs to hap earlier 2027 erstwhile it's acceptable to scope afloat capacity.

Poulin requested an exigency gathering with Premier François Legault past week to sermon the protections of Blainville's peatland and municipal autonomy.

After a gathering with Blanchette Vézina was granted, Poulin specified she wanted to spot the biology studies supporting the government's rationale and recognize wherefore it was seemingly acting against its ain biology objectives.

She besides wanted to cognize wherefore the authorities was awarding peculiar privileges to an American institution successful the existent governmental context.

Blanchette Vézina cancelled the gathering Sunday successful a missive obtained by Radio-Canada, saying that instead, she'll perceive out Poulin during consultation hearings connected the bill.

"You wanted to stock Blainville's position. However, you've decided to enforce caller conditions," said Blanchette Vézina successful her letter.

Poulin says her database of questions didn't astatine each alteration the quality of the meeting. 

"We're expropriating a municipality for a backstage endeavor with American interests. It's mean that we inquire ourselves these questions," she said successful an interview.

According to the government, 76 per cent of the discarded treated and buried by Stablex comes from Canada — mostly from Quebec — including from municipalities similar Montreal, Laval, Quebec City and Sherbrooke. 

WATCH | Breaking down the battle:

In 1981, Stablex received the go-ahead to grow its tract onto adjacent onshore owned by the authorities which is astir 300 metres from a residential zone. In caller years, it changed people and alternatively acceptable its sights connected municipal onshore for the enlargement project. 

Stablex's reasoning for the displacement is twofold. The caller projected site is 1.1 kilometres distant from residences and truthful volition trim imaginable irritants to citizens specified arsenic sound and odours. It tin besides clasp astir 3 times much discarded than the initial expansion site, allowing the institution to proceed operations until 2065 alternatively of 2040.

Poulin says the 300-metre buffer country betwixt the archetypal tract and residences is heavy forested and falls wrong the norms.

"The archetypal cells were a batch closer — they were 50 metres away. So there's thing that justifies this," she said. 

In a September 2023 report, Quebec's biology watchdog, the Bureau d'audiences publiques sur l'environnement (BAPE), described the enlargement task arsenic "premature" and recommended that the authorities not authorize it.

It said the projected tract connected municipal onshore "didn't contiguous immoderate advantages successful presumption of the simplification of nuisance."

Poulin says the city's onshore has a higher ecological worth than the onshore belonging to the government, which has already been disturbed by Stablex's activities. This is according to a study commissioned by the metropolis past fall and completed by Habitat-Nature, which recovered that the projected tract is location to susceptible taxon similar the creaseless greenish snake and the four-toed salamander. 

There's nary bog here, says minister

In her letter, Blanchette Vézina says the projected enlargement tract has much wetlands than the archetypal tract and has already been heavy impacted by quality activity. The tract is littered with bunkers, she says, recalling its subject past, and is presently rented by a institution to store explosives. 

"So, determination hasn't been a bog connected that tract for immoderate time," the curate wrote. 

According to the BAPE report, the ecological worth of the projected site itself is debased to medium, with wetlands covering surfaces betwixt 0.2 and 3.8 hectares. But, the onshore surrounding it has a precocious to exceptional value.

It concluded that the site's worth stems from its relation arsenic portion of a larger ecological corridor, which the enlargement task would fragment.

The BAPE estimates that expanding Stablex's operations to the municipal tract volition entail the demolition of implicit 9 hectares of wetland.

In 2020, Blainville had signed a declaration to authorize the merchantability of the land to Stablex but changed its caput erstwhile the BAPE study came retired successful 2023.