Scientist slams federal sewage dump study
Environment Canada’s panel charged with reviewing Montreal’s planned sewage dump is a sham, says a prominent scientist.
The federal department has the expertise and Environment Canada scientists have done the work, said Sarah Dorner, an associate professor at École Polytechnique and one of five signatories of a position paper declaring the plan to dump billions of litres of sewage justified.
What’s important, says Dorner, is an evaluation on the impact on fish. “We’re talking about models — how these contaminants will be spread out, will be dispersed through the environment,” she said.
Dorner, who studies urban drainage and water quality and holds the Canada Research Chair in source water protection, and four colleagues from the École Polytechnique released the paper because they said they were concerned about political interference.
“The appearance is that the minister basically created this expert panel to avoid making a decision,” she said.
Dorner said the members of the government panel are competent, but they should not be charged with the decision. The panel does not have the full range of necessary expertise and is not wholly independent, she said. One expert, INRS-Institut Armand-Frappier professor Daniel G. Cyr, has spoken out against the dump plan, while Robert Hausler of ÉTS has worked with the city on its ozonation plant, Dorner said. The third expert is Viviane Yargeau of McGill University.
Cyr said in an email the panel was to meet on Monday.
“There is no need for this because we have paid scientists on staff who are expected to do their work. These are top-notch researchers who have been studying the St. Lawrence for decades,” Dorner said, declining to name the scientists.
Asked about previous Environment Canada studies, a spokesman wrote in an email that the panel “is taking into consideration information from the city, the province, and other scientific and technical experts in this field to analyze the current proposal as well as other options available to the city.” Environment Canada expects the report by Oct. 31.
On Sunday, federal Environment Minister Leona Aglukkaq appointed three experts to assess Montreal’s plan, and to report back by Nov. 2. Mayor Denis Coderre has said the deadline for starting the dump is Oct. 23, after which the work might have to be put off for a year.
On Monday, an aide to the mayor said she had no information on whether the work might be able to go ahead this season after the report is handed down.
The city needs to build a snow chute while the Bonaventure Expressway is dismantled to make way for a ground-level boulevard. Eight billion litres of sewage would be run off to the river as a sewer would be closed to allow the work to proceed for seven days.
Dorner could not say whether the work could happen after the mayor’s deadline.
“There is critical maintenance work that has to be conducted,” Dorner said, comparing a delay to what happens if you didn’t fill a tooth cavity in a timely manner.
“This way, they could co-ordinate their work to minimize the overall amount of sewage that would be dumped.”
Sylvain Ouellet, Projet Montréal’s spokesman on the environment and water, said the party was pleased with panel’s appointment.
He said the party was not necessarily against the sewage dump. However, no environmental studies or options to mitigate the spill were provided, Ouellet said. Asked about Environment Canada studies, as suggested by Dorner, he said: “This is the main problem with the dossier since the beginning. We don’t have access to data, we don’t have access to documentation.”