The Quebec government will begin a new phase of treatment at one of the province’s most contaminated sites.
A new treatment plant will be built on the site of the old Mercier lagoons, just south of Montreal, to pump and treat polluted water from the contaminated soil, from leaching into groundwater around it.
The plant will replace one that was built in 1984 and refurbished in 2012, which has been criticized for not capturing enough of the pollution and releasing contaminated water back into the environment.
At a press conference in Mercier to make the announcement, Quebec’s Energy and Natural Resources Minister and MNA for Châteauguay Pierre Moreau says the old plant was too far from the actual contamination site.
“The new plant will be more efficiently located next to the site where there is the contamination,” he explains, “so, therefore, it will pump less water and it will be a more efficient treatment in the new plant.”
The government admits that the new plant won’t be a permanent solution, but Moreau says trying to remove the contaminated soil is too risky.
“You don’t know what kind of contamination is there and what will happen if you put this contamination with the air. “It could be devastating.”
He says pumping and treating the contaminated water is the best that can be done for now until a more permanent fix is found.
However, some critics like environmental toxicologist Daniel Green disagree saying that pump-and-treat systems are too expensive and that excavating the polluted soil and rock could be done safely.
The new plant won’t be up and running for another three years, and the Quebec government estimates that it will likely cost more than $25 million to build, and $500,000 annually to run it.
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