MONTREAL – Environment Canada is expected to make its decision on whether or not the City of Montreal will be allowed to dump eight billion litres of raw sewage into the Saint-Lawrence River.
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For about a month, there’s been a federal order preventing the project.
On Friday, details of a study funded by Environment Canada were released.
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It revealed the damage to the river and fish would be limited if sewage was dumped before winter.
As a precaution, Environment Canada recommended the city boost its water-quality monitoring during the dump, which should take seven days.
Environment Quebec initially approved the plan, but was put on hold by the federal government.
The decision now falls into the lap of Canada’s new Environment Minister Catherine McKenna, who is in Paris ahead of the United Nations conference on climate change.
Montreal’s sewage dump became a political issue, more than an environmental one after Montreal Mayor Denis Coderre and the Conservative government traded jabs.
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Both sides accused the other of withholding information and Coderre called the federal government “irresponsible” over how it handled the situation.
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