Sewage spill: Is your city the worst in Quebec?

Every day, large amounts of sewage are discharged into Quebec rivers due to their inability to be treated by municipal sanitation systems. In addition to feces, these droplets contain solids such as wipes, cigarette butts and tampons.

According to data recorded by Foundation Rivers against 60,663 in 2019, Quebec waterways experienced 52,794 spills last year.

If the situation appears to be improving, it could be due to less rainfall and generally milder weather in 2020, the company said. These reductions are not constructive.

Who are the black sheep?

To establish a list of those who perform poorly in wastewater management, Foundation Riviers examined the discharges of 700 municipalities out of 1108 municipalities in the province, classifying them into three categories according to their size.

In large cities, Languil clearly stands as the largest emitter of untreated wastewater in Quebec, including all communities., The company also said in a press release Significant decline in Lewis and Trois-Rivieres between 2019 and 2020.

Longueil Sylvie Parent Mayor promised to fix the problem last year, but Foundation Riviers classifies her city’s sewer network as already the worst in Quebec.

Longuil recorded 1,013 sewage discharges into the St. Lawrence River in 2020. This is 178 less than 2019, but this slight improvement did not allow the municipality to relinquish its Duns title.

In the case of medium-sized municipalities, they are again connected to the Language network at the top of the list. However, they are closely followed by the towns of Roberwall, La Tuk, Mercier and Salaberry-de-Valleyfield.

Medium-sized municipalities have intensity levels [de déversements] Per capita is not entirely acceptable and most of the work has to be done here, Estimates the Rivieres Foundation.

Finally, in smaller municipalities, it has the worst results for Saint-Tight, Kaplan, Marsoui, Waterloo, Manso and Paspebiac.

Permission for pollution

Fondation Rivières also denies the status of the Ministry of Environment whose goal is not to increase and decrease the number of spills beyond the 2014 level. The ministry has warned that it will crack down on municipalities that do not reach this target after January 1, 2030.

This means that municipalities are allowed to increase pollution in our rivers for the next ten years., Condemned Andre Belanger, CEO of Fondation Rivières.

Why wait until 2030? Why not target the violating municipalities and address the most obvious issues now? That doesn’t make any sense.

In 2020, the record is not worse or better than last year, but it is not improving, The company concluded.