Adding a garage to store animal matter would only solve “a tiny part” of the problem at the Rivière-des-Prairies plant, Sanimax retorts to the City of Montreal, when it tries to impose a new by-law to address foul odor issues in the area.
Posted at 6:00 a.m.
“We know that in Montreal, the garage is one of several rooms that will have to be deployed, but the challenge is really speed. Me, I have to expand to add equipment and process the material immediately. I don’t want to give the material a single opportunity to degrade in our yard,” explains the CEO of Sanimax in North America, Martial Hamel, in an interview with The Press.
He was thus reacting to an exit from the Plante administration, which announced Thursday that under a regulation adopted in mid-June by the Metropolitan Community of Montreal (CMM) – which must still be ratified by Quebec -, the company will soon have to store animal matter in a building and will no longer be able to keep it outside. “It is major, because it is one of the major causes of odors,” argued the mayor of Rivière-des-Prairies–Pointe-aux-Trembles, Caroline Bourgeois.
PHOTO FRANÇOIS ROY, LA PRESSE ARCHIVES
Martial Hamel, CEO of Sanimax in North America
First specializing in the recovery of dead farm animals, Sanimax has been accumulating complaints from residents for years, either for animal carcasses left in the middle of the street, or for odor problems. In the summer of 2021, in particular, the cities of Montreal, Lévis and Saint-Hyacinthe had received an unprecedented number of complaints against Sanimax. Since January of that year, the company alone had been the subject of 46% of the complaints relating to air quality recorded throughout the metropolis.
However, for Mr. Hamel, the solution lies in a “global plan”, which he claims to have submitted to the City in 2019. “In this plan, we had several permanent solutions, he said. For example, there was talk of a new entrance to avoid waiting trucks, an expansion of the factory, a loading area for finished products, a garage, and new buildings to transfer the material. »
“If we had concluded, we would now be able to deploy the investments. But in December 2021, everything was stopped. And we still don’t have the permits or the zoning, even to build a garage, and even less for the other equipment, “continues the CEO, saying he is” frustrated “by the attitude of the authorities to the towards his group.
A call for dialogue
According to him, the discussions went “significantly better” in Lévis and Saint-Hyacinthe, where measures are already being put in place to reduce odors. In April, the Minister of the Environment, Benoit Charette, announced a government plan to reduce odors at the Sanimax plant in Lévis. “We had frank and open discussions, and it worked. We will have expansions, additions of air treatment. It may be, the resolution,” insists the entrepreneur, for whom Montreal “goes it alone.”
PHOTO ERICK LABBÉ, LE SOLEIL ARCHIVES
Environment Minister Benoit Charette during an announcement of an action plan to reduce odors at the Sanimax plant in Lévis
As a whole, the CMM regulations also include “extremely worrying” terms for the agri-food chain, according to Martial Hamel.
One speaks for example of regulation of opening hours. Except we drive 24 hours a day for a reason. We are in tow of the activities of the entire industry. The impact on the chain that it would have, that worries me.
Martial Hamel, CEO of Sanimax in North America
“In other words, we are given a regulation that condemns us to not being able to achieve the objectives. Except that if we didn’t do what we do, it would have consequences in the hundreds of millions, ”adds the businessman.
The City of Montreal pleads that it acted in good faith from the start. “For us, the important thing is that citizens regain their quality of life as quickly as possible. We have always been open to dialogue with the company so that it presents its solutions in accordance with the municipal standards in force. A plan that meets these criteria has never been submitted to the City,” says press attaché Marikym Gaudreault.
Remember that Sanimax and the City of Montreal are not their first skirmishes. In January, the Superior Court also ruled that the Quebec multinational had polluted the air and water. In the judgment, we read that the knacker tries to escape the law in the name of “twisted”, “brazen”, “absurd” arguments, devoid of “any valid legal basis” or having “strictly no sense “. In total, Sanimax has also been sentenced at least three times by the municipal court, including twice in 2018.
With Marie-Claude Malboeuf, The Press