The Mothers at the Front organization and the Citizen Action Committee – Northvolt project are urging the federal government to carry out an environmental assessment of the Northvolt project, highlighting the need to protect biodiversity.
The two groups officially submitted their request for an environmental assessment of the industrial megaproject on Tuesday directly to the Montreal office of the Canadian Minister of the Environment, Steven Guilbeault.
“It is not too late for the government to play its role. That is to say, it ensures that, through a formal environmental assessment, the environmental impacts related to the Northvolt project are analyzed by independent experts and that the results of this assessment are accessible before the die is cast,” argued Isabelle Senécal, spokesperson for Mères au front – Montréal.
This examination would, according to her, be necessary to ensure the preservation of biodiversity which has not yet been destroyed as part of the work which has already taken place on the site, including the felling of trees and the filling of several wetlands.
“The need for the energy transition must not be used to ignore the very serious risks of collapse of biodiversity, nor to endanger water quality,” said Ms.me Senécal.
The two organizations affirm that the federal government, through the Fisheries Act and the Species at Risk Act, could intervene in particular to ensure that the Northvolt project does not present a risk to the Richelieu River, located nearby. of the site of the future factory.
Steven Guilbeault affirmed earlier this year that the construction of the Northvolt battery mega-factory in Saint-Basile-le-Grand, in Montérégie, did not worry him, recalling that any project has an impact on the environment.
“If you ask me, as a federal minister, if the Northvolt project worries me: no, it does not worry me,” the minister declared in January. “It’s a major industrial project. We have done others, and there are others like that in the country. But it is a project which, in the long term, will lead to very significant ecological benefits for the entire country. »
The Legault government exempted the Northvolt project from the environmental assessment procedure generally imposed on large-scale industrial projects, as soon as the project was announced in September 2023.
More details to come.