Could Quebec find itself with an environmental liability due to Northvolt’s financial difficulties? The question arises, estimate environmental law specialists consulted by Dutysince the Quebec government gave the Swedish multinational three years to propose a plan supposed to compensate for the loss of natural environments destroyed on the site of its future factory, including habitats of threatened species.
According to what we can read in the authorization granted in January by the Quebec Ministry of the Environment, Northvolt has made a commitment to “conserve off-site natural environments of a sufficient surface area to allow their use by wildlife and, if necessary, to create or restore them.”
We do not specify a figure, but the company has already promised an area of 30 to 50 hectares. The document also emphasizes that this measure must make it possible to “mitigate the impact of the project on wildlife species in precarious situations and their habitat”.
Added to this is the promise to plant 24,000 trees to compensate for the loss of 8,000 trees on the site, but also a commitment to restore a little more than 15,000 m² of wetlands which are affected as part of the development of the complex. industrial. These wetlands must be restored by the end of 2032.
Regarding the site to be protected elsewhere, Northvolt has until the beginning of 2027 for a “proposal” to be “submitted and approved”, indicates by email the Ministry of the Environment, the Fight against Climate Change , Wildlife and Parks (MELCCFP). Same thing for planting trees.
The company has not yet targeted the site(s) necessary to protect 30 to 50 hectares of natural environments. “Northvolt is following an established plan that includes creating a working group with local conservation experts. Their mission will be to evaluate potential sites and recommend the best conservation project to Northvolt,” explains the company.
It is also too early in the development of the battery factory project for the tree planting which is planned, specifies Northvolt, adding that it has the necessary sums to comply with “the laws in force” in Quebec.
“Environmental liability”
However, in the context where Northvolt is experiencing serious financial difficulties, there is a risk that Quebec finds itself with “an environmental liability”, underlines Me Camille Cloutier, lawyer at the Quebec Environmental Law Center. “There is a commitment from the company, but if the project falls through, what will happen with this commitment? It’s very uncertain. There is a good chance that we will have difficulty enforcing it,” she warns.
“It’s a piecemeal, emergency approach, where we destroy important natural environments in exchange for an intention to protect another environment in a few years, but without knowing where, when and how,” adds M.e Cloutier.
Same story on M’s sidee Jean-François Girard, lawyer specializing in environmental issues. “Normally, we should have had a plan that would specify the compensation measures, but not three years later. We must agree on the plan before granting authorizations, because if Northvolt does not carry out its project, we can forget about the compensation plan. »
The issue is all the more important in Montérégie as the land now leveled was one of the last natural environments sheltering significant biodiversity, according to what emerged from opinions produced by MELCCFP experts.
“The project site is a massif of natural environments” of great “diversity” which “give it an interest for fauna, including more than 142 species of birds and numerous species in precarious situations (14 species of birds , 4 species of bats as well as 3 species of turtles)”, indicated the scientists in an opinion produced in anticipation of the authorization granted in January.
“The size and location of the site allow it to play the role of intermediary between two important forest massifs, namely Mont Saint-Bruno and Mont Saint-Hilaire, and between the regionally recognized forest corridors associated with these two Montérégie hills,” we could read in another review.
In this context, the lawyer and author specializing in environmental law Jean Baril recalls that subjecting Northvolt to the environmental procedure, including an examination by the Office of Public Hearings on the Environment (BAPE), would have made it possible to have a much more precise portrait of what will be done to compensate for the loss of environments which sheltered around twenty threatened or vulnerable species.
“In all cases, lost wetlands or natural environments, required and adequate compensation, protection and restoration measures, public participation in the BAPE hearings following the development and acceptance by the Ministry of Environment of a detailed and complete impact study, would have been very much preferable,” he argues.
“However, with the “fast track” chosen by the government, trees are now cut down, wetlands filled in, otherwise largely affected, and if Northvolt’s financial situation does not improve, all this environmental and democratic waste will have been of no use,” says Mr. Baril.