Lac-Megantic | More trains carrying hazardous materials pass through the city

(Lac-Mégantic) Ten years after the tragedy in Lac-Mégantic, the railway bypass is still waiting and in recent months, the number of trains containing hazardous materials crossing the city center has increased, according to citizens worried about another disaster happening.

When the Mayor of Lac-Mégantic is asked if she fears that a train loaded with hazardous materials will cause another tragedy in her municipality, she answers without hesitation in the affirmative. “Yes, in capital letters and underlined, because the convoys are longer and longer” and that the dangerous materials transported by the trains “there are more and more of them” and “we can see it firsthand”, argues with concern Julie Morin.

In the event of an incident, a city’s first responders can have quick access, via an application, to a precise description of the material contained in a wagon and the risks associated with it, but Mayor Morin would like to know advances the products transported by the trains that cross the downtown area of ​​its community to better plan emergency interventions.

“We have no information, the municipalities do not know in advance what is happening in their city”, explains Julie Morin.

According to the law, railway companies must inform municipalities of hazardous materials circulating on their territory “within 30 days of the end of each quarter”.

Transport Canada cites security and logistical reasons to explain this fact.

The mayor of Lac-Mégantic since 2017, however, has a good idea of ​​what was in the trains that have traveled in recent months in the same place where on July 6, 2013 a convoy of 72 wagons carrying crude oil derailed and killed 47 people.

This information, it holds them in particular from citizens like Robert Bellefleur, who lists the frequency and length of train convoys, as well as the materials they transport.

When The Canadian Press meets him, Mr. Bellefleur climbs a tree using a ladder to change the batteries of a camera he has installed to film convoys on the railway tracks, near his house.

The images he records allow him to identify the “UN numbers”, that is to say the four-digit codes that are written on the wagons transporting regulated goods.

He then enters the UN numbers into an online database to identify hazardous materials.

“A month ago I saw 40 tanks carrying propane gas one behind the other” in a convoy “of about 200 wagons”, worries Robert Bellefleur, who is spokesman for the Coalition of citizens and organizations committed to rail safety in Lac‑Mégantic.

He explains that at the time of the tragedy, the length of the convoys did not exceed 100 wagons, but that today, “they are monster convoys” and that they have never been so numerous as in the last months.

“The ultratrains of 200 wagons or more, we started to see that last year” and “currently, they pass frequently,” adds Mr. Bellefleur.

Despite an email request, Canadian Pacific (CP) has not confirmed to The Canadian Press whether the frequency of trains carrying hazardous materials and their length have increased in recent months.

In an exchange with the news agency, a CP spokeswoman explained that “the volumes and types of rail traffic to be shipped determine the frequency and length of trains” and that these depend “on the economy and the needs of rail shippers in Lac-Mégantic, all of Quebec and all of North America”.

Robert Bellefleur’s greatest fear is that a mechanical problem will arise when a train descends the slope between the city of Nantes and that of Lac-Mégantic and that “the driver will not be able to slow down the convoy” before arrive downtown, on the curve where the tragedy happened ten years ago.

Mayor Morin shares this fear. “Several reasons explain the derailment which occurred in Lac-Mégantic in July 2013”, she recalled, specifying that “among these elements, there is the curve which is at the bottom of the slope, right in heart of downtown. The slope and the curve are topographical elements that do not exist elsewhere. »

Because of “the topography and the collective trauma that we have experienced, the bypass must be done as quickly as possible”, explains Julie Morin when The Canadian Press met her at City Hall at the end of of May.

“If we are in a meeting and the train passes, I cannot concentrate and it is a feeling that is accentuated,” added the mayor.

The path of division

In the wake of the disaster that claimed 47 lives, many Méganticois opposed the return of trains containing hazardous materials to the city center and quickly, the construction of a bypass became the priority for the council. municipal at the time, and still is for that of the current administration.

But 10 years after the tragedy, the bypass that was to be part of the community’s healing process has still not been built.

“Minister Marc Garneau and Justin Trudeau announced at the time that this was a social recovery project and not just rail infrastructure. Unfortunately, the government does not know how to manage the social aspect of the project. It doesn’t communicate a lot of information. There is no management of the file in order to reassure the populations, to inform more than less, to come and sit in the kitchen of the world and to understand what the sensitivities are. They are far from us and that creates more tension between the citizens,” explains Julie Morin.

“The rail tragedy happened on July 6, 2013, they (the rail companies and Transport Canada), they picked up the scrap metal, and started to run trains again, but we, 10 years later, we are still in the tragedy, to manage social tensions and all the economic and social challenges that this has brought, ”she adds.

The social climate has deteriorated and the tension between citizens in favor of the project and those who oppose it has increased “from the moment the citizens received the offers of acquisition from the Government of Canada”, a process that began in 2021.

Many of the lands that are in the sights of the government are located on agricultural land; moreover, the Union of Agricultural Producers (UPA) opposes the current route of the bypass.

The municipal councils of Frontenac and Nantes also withdrew their support for the project.

During a referendum held in the neighboring municipality of Frontenac in February, the inhabitants voted 92.5% against “the project for a new railway bypass on the territory of Frontenac”.

Citizen groups fear in particular the repercussions of the construction of the road on drinking water resources and wetlands.

But Transport Canada argues that the current route “has been recognized as the most advantageous by the Bureau d’audiences publiques sur l’environnement du Québec (BAPE) and as the one having the least impact on agricultural land by the Commission of protection of the agricultural territory of Quebec (CPTAQ)”.

Despite opposition from several groups, Ottawa has no intention of backing down. Last Wednesday, the federal government announced that it would proceed with the expropriation of the owners with whom it was not able to come to an agreement.

Ottawa had just announced that some citizens would be expropriated when the Coalition of Collateral Victims (CVC), one of the opposition groups, promised “to use the legal avenues available to put an end to the project”.

The properties located on the route of the bypass belong to 43 owners. It is expected that when the land acquisition process is completed, the Canadian Transportation Agency will approve the final design, after which construction could begin.

For the Mayor of Lac-Mégantic, “while we delay and make the project more complex, we forget the people who are waiting for the bypass and who are losing hope, and who are afraid each time the train passes”.

Hope and Reconstruction

Mayor Morin argues that the bypass, in addition to being a social healing project, is essential to the economic development of the town of 5,800 inhabitants.

“There are investors who tell me that as long as the train will pass, they will not invest, so that also hinders development. »

Despite the challenges and downtown reconstruction efforts that will last several years, the mayor says she has every reason to see the future in a good light.

She promotes the quality of life in her city, whose new vision emphasizes sustainable development.

She underlines, for example, the 3000 solar panels installed on the new buildings in the city center which supply energy to around thirty shops, or the new cycle paths which run along the river.

“We are slowly but surely taking back the territory, we are reclaiming it and all I want is that we continue on this path and that along the way, we don’t forget to support each other. and collectively, because even if it’s been 10 years, it’s still an open wound. »