During a period of intense heatwave like the one we have just experienced, citizens eager for fresh air are looking not only for breaths of fresh air, but also for access to water. However, even though Quebec has 3% of the planet’s renewable fresh water reserves, blue gold is fragile and very difficult to access.
Ask the city dwellers in Montreal’s east end who frequent Parc de la Promenade-Bellerive. This park, which is approximately 2.2 kilometres long, borders the St. Lawrence River in the borough of Mercier–Hochelaga-Maisonneuve. During the 2021 election campaign, Montreal Mayor Valérie Plante, who was running for re-election, promised to make access to the river permanent and safe in this park by creating a supervised swimming area that would allow for more than just a dip in one or two toes.
Between hopes and promises, two recent motor oil spills and a very unfavourable public health advisory have postponed until 2032 the very idea of a day of swimming in the waters of the St. Lawrence River at this location, far, very far from the frivolous promises of the Projet Montréal team who had estimated, at the time, that the beach would be good for the inauguration in 2022. The beach’s soil contaminated with lead and benzene and the high risk of industrial spills affecting the water quality convinced the Direction régionale de santé publique (DRSP) of Montreal to limit access to the site and prohibit swimming, while major work secures the perimeter.
This summer, two motor oil spills whose origin has not yet been formally established highlighted the extreme proximity of this park in eastern Montreal to industrial activities, including that of the Port of Montreal. In its notice, the Montreal DRSP recalls that “the Emergency-Environment team of the [ministère de l’Environnement] intervened about ten times, in 2023 alone, for spills and leaks of hydrocarbons or other unidentified substances at the Port of Montreal.
Other climatic factors are likely to have an impact on water quality, in Montreal, but also in all cities with combined sewer systems, meaning they combine rainwater and sanitary wastewater. In Montreal alone, heavy rains cause more than 1,200 overflows each year, and these obviously lead to a clear deterioration in water quality. Also in its opinion, the Montreal DRSP noted that pathogenic enteric bacteria such as E. coli were found in the water of the Promenade-Bellerive park during overflow episodes leading to the discharge of wastewater into the Saint-Laurent.
That’s exactly what nearly brought the men’s triathlon event to a standstill at the Paris Olympics last week, when heavy rains on two consecutive days in the City of Lights negatively affected water quality, forcing the event to be postponed for health reasons. This Sunday, the mixed triathlon relay training was also canceled due to poor water quality in the Seine. As of this writing, it’s unclear whether the event will be able to go ahead on Monday. Swimmers who venture into polluted water are likely to become ill fairly immediately.
Paris has invested 100 million euros in the design of a retention basin capable of receiving and treating a mixture of some 50,000 cubic metres of wastewater and rainwater, the aim being to avoid contaminating the river. Apparently, abnormally large amounts of rain that fell in Paris in July put paid to this engineering work.
The very costly Seine River cleanup—€1.4 million invested in France to make the Seine and its main tributary, the Marne, suitable for swimming, not only for the Olympics, but also for the general public—provides an excellent overview of the divisions that tear societies apart over water quality and scarcity. While Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo and some French ministers donned their wetsuits to set an example of safe diving in the Seine, protests against the use of “megabassines” by some French farmers were taking place, particularly in Poitou. Megabassines collect water in winter to irrigate crops in summer that have been battered by increasingly frequent droughts. Opponents of these projects, championed by farmers’ unions and the government, are particularly concerned about the effect of these structures on the state of groundwater.
Extreme heat and heavy rains in a short period of time are here to stay, as evidenced by those of the last few months and years. Cities have a responsibility to prepare for them in a sustainable manner, by focusing on adaptability, resilience and safety. As Quebec City, Beauport, Verdun and Beloeil have done, restoring safe access to the St. Lawrence River to citizens should be a priority.