The abundance of water in Quebec no longer excuses the carelessness that has long marked its management in the territory. Now that red lights are beginning to flash around blue gold, cities are mobilizing to repair the damage of decades of laissez-faire, convinced that several generations would pay the price for inaction.
Turning on the tap and seeing drinking water fall out: a habit for the vast majority of Quebecers, a luxury still inaccessible, according to the UN, for 2.3 billion people. In a Quebec that hugs the St. Lawrence and has half a million lakes, water seems inexhaustible and waste almost normal.
The average residential consumption in the province reached 262 liters per day in 2019, according to Statistics Canada, while the World Health Organization estimates that 100 is enough to swim in “real comfort”. The sprinkling of driveways with large jets of water remains a tenacious myth in suburban folklore. Last Monday, the City of Quebec even adopted, without laughing, a regulation which prohibits “to water the plants when it rains”.
However, the frivolity that Quebecers show with their water closely borders irresponsibility. Blue gold is starting to run out in some municipalities. In others, natural sources are beginning to taint. This is particularly the case of Lake Saint-Charles, the main reservoir of drinking water in Quebec since 1854.
A sick lake
Even today, this lake waters half of the national capital by gravity, which saves the City from breaking the bank to pay for an expensive pumping system.
Its catchment area — a sort of natural funnel in which the water of a region flows towards the same point — is largely located in the territory of Stoneham-et-Tewkesbury, a town which has seen its population increase from 7,000, in 2011 to nearly 10,000 a decade later.
Nature has long been able to filter contaminants itself before they reach the lake. Today, it is no longer sufficient for the task: the forests are shrinking, swallowed up by an urban sprawl that has never had to ask permission before concreting the catchment area. Nitrogen and phosphorus now flow in quantity from fertilizers used on golf courses and private land, but especially from wastewater from obsolete, porous and concentrated septic tanks. The US Environmental Protection Agency sets the critical threshold at 16 septic systems per square kilometer. Some sectors of Stoneham have 260.
“It’s like someone who eats badly and who is going to have a heart attack, illustrates Mélanie Deslongchamps, general manager of the Agiro organization, responsible for monitoring the health of the body of water and, above all, improving it. It’s the same with the lake: there is a limit to its ability to digest junk food. The first symptoms of indigestion surfaced 15 years ago at Lake Saint-Charles, after an initial bloom of cyanobacteria. Rapid degradation ensued: between 2008 and 2012, the lake aged prematurely by 25 years. “The death of a lake is when it curls up on itself and becomes a bog,” explains Ms.me Deslongchamps. This process recently accelerated at Lake Saint-Charles. »
It’s like someone who eats badly and is going to have a heart attack. It’s the same with the lake: there’s a limit to its ability to digest junk food.
If the capital fails to take care of its lake, it will have to draw its water elsewhere. Some evoke the great Jacques-Cartier Lake, 100 km north of Quebec. Others see the river as a lifeline, a solution that would, however, be very expensive in terms of treatment and pumping costs.
“If people knew the difference between the cost of a liter of water drawn from a good quality lake and that of a liter of water that had to be treated because it was drawn from the river… C is mind-blowing,” says Sébastien Couture, the mayor of Stoneham elected in November by the grace of an ambitious promise: to develop less, but to develop better.
“In 2022, the economic prosperity of a municipality cannot be achieved through development,” he believes. Cities open doors, they have an economic contribution for what? Ten or fifteen years? And from the moment they have to redo an infrastructure, it’s over, they have to do a new development to finance it. What is that ? There is no financial sustainability in that! »
The 43-year-old from Tewkesbury has seen firsthand what development can cost when nature pays the bill.
“In my childhood, I had the chance to lie down on the roads of our municipality to watch the northern lights, remembers the elected official. Today, this is no longer possible: the auroras have been lost. »
The last municipal election opened a new era of collaboration between Quebec and Stoneham. The two new administrations dream of becoming an example for all of Quebec in terms of drinking water management. “We could even become a model at the doors of the National Assembly,” believes Sébastien Couture.
The example of New York
Both cities are inspired by New York to achieve this. On May 11, they welcomed a delegation from the Big Apple, who came to talk about one of the greatest international successes in the preservation of drinking water reservoirs.
In the 1990s, pollution began to alter the purity of the water contained in the Catskill-Delaware basin, located 150 km north of Manhattan and which meets 90% of the needs of the megalopolis. To ensure the health of consumers, the federal authorities then asked the City to build a new filtration plant. Its cost was astronomical: 8 billion dollars to build it, plus 300 million a year to operate it.
New York bet on nature to avoid paying this exorbitant sum. Since 1997, the City has spent more than $2 billion buying land in the Catskill Basin to create a pollution-filtering green belt.
The New York metropolis also remunerates the owners who develop the forest along the tributary watercourses of the reservoirs, in addition to providing assistance to the farmers. New York is also relieving homeowners of a considerable financial burden by paying for the replacement of individual septic tanks that are aging and at risk of leaking sewage into the basin.
A quarter of a century later, the megalopolis is the envy of the world: its 10 million inhabitants consume, every day, more than 7 billion liters of water purified in large part by the environment. And this, for free.
Help from Quebec and Ottawa
Quebec and Stoneham also want to rely on natural capital to protect Lake Saint-Charles. In March, the City acquired, in partnership with Ducks Unlimited Canada, the Sagamité estate, a 153-hectare piece of land located right in the watershed and covered with almost virgin vegetation.
This purchase is the first of a long series, hopes Marie-Josée Asselin, responsible for the protection of water sources within the executive council of Quebec. “We have targeted some, territories to protect, indicates the adviser. That said, you have to have the levers to make these acquisitions. »
The financial contribution of higher governments will quickly become necessary, she believes, to establish in Quebec a model inspired by the Catskills. Experts think so too.
“New York has 10 million inhabitants, it’s all of Quebec united in one city,” explains Jérôme Cerutti, doctoral candidate in land use planning at Université Laval. This gives him significant financial strength to buy land. »
The megalopolis also has the right to levy its own tax. Meanwhile, in Quebec, “there is a big gap between what is asked of municipalities and the resources they have to achieve what they want,” continues Mr. Cerutti.
One of the priority actions to be put in place to protect Lake Saint-Charles is to connect the septic tanks and purification plants in Stoneham to the Quebec sewer. The cost of the connection looks set to be too high, however, for Quebec and Stoneham to pay alone.
“The provincial will have to make its contribution, the federal too, concludes Sébastien Couture. The DNA of our territory is the quality of our living environment and our wide open spaces. It is around this that we must develop. »