Tunnel could unearth toxic waste: critic
Montreal’s $5.9-billion electric train project could endanger a long-awaited project to stop hazardous chemicals from leaking into the St. Lawrence River, according to environmentalist Daniel Green.
Plans for the Réseau électrique métropolitain call for a tunnel to be dug through the Technoparc in Pointe-St-Charles, one of Quebec’s worst toxic waste sites, notes Green, who is running for the Green party in the federal byelection in St-Laurent.
The industrial park near the Bonaventure Expressway is a former industrial dump that gained international infamy when Robert Kennedy Jr.’s Waterkeeper Alliance group lobbied the federal government to contain the chemicals, alleging Canada was in violation of its own Fisheries Act.
Green, who gave a talk on the rail project at Concordia University Tuesday evening, said digging the tunnel is likely to stir up toxic sediment and cause contaminated groundwater to seep into the river.
“It’s one of the worst hazardous waste sites in Quebec,” said Green, co-president of the Société pour vaincre la pollution (SVP).
Digging a tunnel in such a toxic environment is a risky and costly enterprise that could endanger current efforts to contain and clean up the contamination, he said.
“We know it increases the seepage of toxic chemicals,” Green said.
“By just building the tunnel, it will change the approach of containment,” he added.
The five-kilometre trench-style tunnel will run from the southern tip of Pointe-St-Charles to south of Central Station in Griffintown. About 500 metres will run through the contaminated site, Green said.
But a spokesman for CPDQ Infra, the Caisse de dépôt subsidiary responsible for the rail project, said planners are aware of the contamination and will take measures to mitigate risk and respect environmental norms.
“We’ve been working hand-inhand with the city for more than a year,” Jean-François Lacroix said. “We are co-ordinating the two projects,” he added.
Lacroix noted that Quebec’s environmental review commission, the Bureau d’audiences publiques sur l’environnement (BAPE) did not signal any problems with the tunnel.
In January, the BAPE withheld approval from the project, saying CPDQ Infra has not provided enough information on key issues like projected ridership, costs, revenue, environmental impact and governance.
Green said CPDQ Infra only mentioned the tunnel in an annex to its rail proposal and he only learned of it by reading the fine print.
While environmentalists and supporters of public transit have called for a light-rail project for years, Green said the Caisse’s project has been improvised and would be poorly integrated with the existing métro and train network. “This is a prime example (of poor planning),” he said of the tunnel.
Environmentalists are divided over the project, with the David Suzuki Foundation, Équiterre and Vivre en Ville supporting it, while local groups like the Green Coalition, Sierra Club of Quebec, Sauvons la falaise and others opposing.