Fifteen years after the announcement of its construction, a first organic materials processing plant in Montreal will finally come into service within a few days. Delays and unforeseen events over the years have significantly increased the bill.
“Starting in April, the City will test indoor equipment with real organic materials,” confirms Duty the office of Mayor Valérie Plante. The work on the Organic Materials Processing Center in the Saint-Laurent borough “is 95% complete,” it is stated.
Located in the Saint-Laurent borough, on Henri-Bourassa Boulevard West, the plant should be able to process 50,000 tonnes of green and food waste annually through composting.
A few days before commissioning, the City of Montreal assures that it will not inject more money into the project. Because over the years, delays and cost overruns have caused the bill to swell, which has now reached $372 million for the Saint-Laurent plant, as well as for the future biomethanization plant in Montreal East.
A long saga
In 2009, Gérald Tremblay’s administration announced its intention to build four compostable materials processing plants for an inauguration in 2012. The following year, it added a fifth plant, this time for biomethanization. The cost for all the projects was estimated at $237 million in 2013.
After several procrastinations, Montreal finally decided to move forward with two projects in 2019. It has since awarded contracts totaling nearly $372 million for construction and operation to Suez Canada Waste Services, which later became Veolia.
If the Saint-Laurent plant will enter service shortly, the Montreal-East biomethanization center, for its part, “should receive the first trucks” of organic materials this fall, assures Montreal.
However, in a report published in 2021, the Auditor General of Montreal, Michèle Galipeau highlighted the explosion in factory costs: the cost of the project “could be almost twice what had been planned 6 years earlier for the 5 infrastructures, while only 2 will be completed […] “.
” Very good news “
Despite the cost overruns, the commissioning of the plant is “very good news,” says Karel Ménard, director of the Quebec Common Front for Ecological Waste Management, “By doing the processing in Montreal, it will reduce waste. impact linked to the management and transport of organic materials from the west of the city. This will be done close to the picking,” he adds.
The mayor of Saint-Laurent, Alan DeSousa, piloted the composting center project under the Tremblay administration. Fifteen years later, he judges that factories are still necessary to locally process organic materials. However, he considers the explosion of costs and the delays that occurred under the administration of Valérie Plante unacceptable. “I deplore that the administration did not do the necessary analysis to bring the boat to port while respecting the taxpayers’ ability to pay,” he said, referring to other projects marked by significant overruns. costs, whether for the ozonation plant or the Bellechasse transport center.
“It’s going to be the most expensive composting center in the world,” believes the elected official. I can’t wait to see if the equipment will be gold plated. »
“It is deplorable that the City of Montreal’s organic matter recovery project cost taxpayers more than $350 million when private companies were already offering this service for a fraction of the price,” says Kevin Morin, director General of the Quebec Environmental Technology Business Council.
He now says he hopes that a possible obligation to collect organic materials from businesses and industries could be carried out by private collectors. According to him, this would have the effect of avoiding a spiral of increasing costs.