The Contrecoeur port megaproject will require the felling of approximately 20,000 trees and the destruction of wetlands that serve as habitats for dozens of wildlife species, some of which are threatened with extinction. The promoters, who have received $580 million in public funding so far, however, promise measures to “compensate” for the impacts of the largest industrial port project in decades.
Nearly three years after obtaining the green light from the Trudeau government, the Montreal Port Authority (MPA) is still awaiting federal authorization which will allow it to partially destroy a “critical habitat” of an endangered species. of disappearance, the copper redhorse, and therefore to begin dredging the bottom of the St. Lawrence River to build the mooring dock for container ships. The request is still being analyzed, confirms Fisheries and Oceans Canada.
But the APM is already preparing for land work on the site where more than a million containers could pass through each year and more than 1,200 trucks each day. The project includes the development of a seven-track rail yard, a container storage and handling area, an intermodal rail yard, buildings and road access.
The construction of all these infrastructures involves the destruction of natural environments. According to what we can read in the report from the Impact Assessment Agency of Canada (AEIC), “124.8 hectares of vegetation potentially supporting species with special status would be lost due to deforestation, removal of vegetation and the movement of machinery and heavy vehicles.”
Around 20,000 trees will be cut down. “To compensate for the tree cutting required for the development of the new terminal, the Port of Montreal aims to plant approximately 40,000 plants in the Contrecoeur region, or double the trees affected,” indicates the APM, however, in a response sent by email. “Transplants” of certain endangered plants are also planned.
Birds
The plan, which has not yet been revealed, was discussed during an invitational meeting held in December by the APM, we learned The duty. Among the speakers present were the Nature Conservancy of Canada and the Montreal Metropolitan Community.
However, it was not possible to obtain further details on the area of deforestation or the next steps. “The timetable for deforestation work is part of the timetables which will be submitted by the participants in the upcoming call for tenders for the land works of the terminal,” responds the APM. The precise timetable will therefore be known “once the private partner has been selected”. This “call for proposals” is also planned shortly.
The proponent specifies that it will have to comply with the provisions of federal regulations, which prohibit for a few months per year the destruction of natural environments which serve as nesting places for migratory birds. Deforestation cannot therefore be carried out between 1er April and 1er September, indicates the APM.
The site which will be transformed into a complex for importing and exporting goods is in fact frequented by several dozen species of birds. The AEIC report notes the presence, on the APM grounds, of 114 species. “Among these birds, several are species with special status”, and therefore in danger, specifies the document.
This is particularly the case for the bank swallow, a threatened species under the Species at Risk Act. Since the construction of the 675-metre-long quay will result in the destruction of the breeding sites of three swallow colonies, the developers have created “artificial nest boxes” which are used by the birds. However, the AEIC does not rule out impacts for the avian fauna present in the sector, due to the construction and operation of the port.
Habitat losses are also expected for the monarch butterfly, classified as “endangered”, for endangered species of turtles and for six species of bats, three of which are “endangered”. The promoter has planned measures to compensate for these losses.
Wet environments
The APM, which had various conditions imposed upon it at the time of the federal green light, also promises compensation measures for the destruction of wetlands, while “aiming to optimize the ecological gains of the developments” .
A total of 46 wetlands are located in the “project area” and they total an area of just over 200,000 m2. To these losses could be added other wetlands filled in in the context of the development of other phases, according to what emerges from the AEIC report.
Not to mention the possibility of developing a “logistics hub” linked to the future container terminal. The maps produced as part of the federal assessment also indicate that this pole would encroach on natural environments and possibly on the habitats of the chorus frog, including a theoretically protected “essential habitat”.
As part of the port project, the promoter ensures, however, that the small threatened amphibian will not be affected, even if the APM land contains tree frog habitats. We simply mention “a marginal disturbance” which would be linked to the noise of “rail traffic”, which could be one or two trains per day. The duty has already tried, but in vain, to obtain data from tree frog inventories carried out by the Quebec government on the site of the future port.
Associate professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at the University of Montreal, Stéphanie Pellerin is very skeptical about the effectiveness of the compensation measures promised by the promoters of such industrial projects. “It is easy to plant trees, but these plantations are often not very diversified and have a high mortality rate. And the monitoring lasts a few years, while an ecosystem takes time to recreate itself,” explains the person who knows this type of program well.
She also says she doubts the effectiveness of the measures that are usually taken to reduce the impacts on threatened species whose habitat is destroyed in the name of economic development.
The scientist therefore judges that, in the case of Contrecoeur, it would have been desirable to take more into account the value of what will be destroyed, especially since the project is being implemented in a region which has lost most of its natural environments. “If we find wetlands and wildlife species there, including threatened species, that means that a certain dynamic exists in the ecosystem. If we protect it, in twenty years, it could have very great ecological value. »
“When I look along the St. Lawrence River, I find it worrying to see that we are still saying that it is not serious to destroy another natural environment,” adds Mme Pellerin. In the wake of the Kunming-Montreal Agreement signed at COP15, the governments of Quebec and Canada are committed to curbing the decline of biodiversity and the loss of natural environments, she recalls.