Air pollution | Montreal regulations contested again

The American Iron and Metal Company is asking the courts to partially invalidate a new regulation from the Metropolitan Community of Montreal (CMM) on the discharge of pollutants into the atmosphere, claiming that it is discriminatory, abusive, unreasonable, illogical and useless.

The Superior Court of Quebec will hear this Friday morning the motion of the ferrous and non-ferrous metal recycling company of Montreal-East, which calls for the annulment of a paragraph of “By-law number 2022-99 amending By-law 2001-10 on releases into the atmosphere and on the delegation of its application”, adopted in 2022.

This paragraph, which came into force on Wednesday, requires any company in the recycling industry located in the Montreal metropolitan area to capture and transport pollutants emanating from its activities to a purifier, explains the motion filed in court.

The CMM affirmed when adopting the regulation that the modifications made “do not result in any change or addition to the pollutant emission standards”, the objective being rather to clarify the existing regulations and to eliminate an inconsistency with the regulations. provincial.

But the American Iron and Metal Company, also known as American Iron & Metal, sees new conditions, which it also considers “impossible to satisfy”.

She is therefore exposed to administrative sanctions, such as the revocation of her licenses, and criminal prosecution.

Millions of dollars required

The American Iron and Metal Company processes large metal objects at its Montreal East site, such as steel beams or entire buses, and 60% of the tonnage received arrives by rail, which makes it impossible to relocation of its activities to its facilities in Lévis or Laval, she said.

The company studied different scenarios to capture and purify its particle emissions, in order to comply with the new regulations; the solutions proposed to it would cost between $11 and $23 million, not including the developments required on the site.

These solutions would represent “an enormous operational, technical and economic challenge, without assurance that operations will comply with the regulations,” states its request.

The implementation of these solutions would, for example, require stopping the activities of part of its installations, which “would lead to a domino effect in a drastic reduction, or even closure” of the site’s other infrastructures.

It was also impossible to put these solutions in place in the 18 months which elapsed between the adoption of the regulation and the entry into force of the contested paragraph, alleges the document.

An “unnecessary” obligation

The regulation contested by the American Iron and Metals Company aims to limit particle emissions to 50 milligrams per cubic meter (mg/m^⁠3), but the company’s emissions are already below this threshold, she maintains.

Emissions from the largest of the seven factories on its site were measured at 5 mg/m^⁠3 in the presence of inspectors from the City of Montreal, she says.

“There is nothing to reduce,” the motion argues, adding that “these requirements are therefore abusive, unreasonable and illogical.”

“Discriminatory” measure

Since the regulation only applies in the Montreal metropolitan area, the American Iron and Metal Company deplores the fact that it is the only company that will be subject to it, while its competitors located elsewhere in the CMM will not be. .

The burden of the requirements imposed by the challenged paragraph is such that it will amount to dispossessing the American Iron and Metal Company of its factories, the document adds.

The company further emphasizes that the Regulation on cleaning the atmosphere of the Quebec government exempts recycling activities from the application of the standard on the release of particles into the atmosphere.

The CMM regulation will therefore have the effect of placing the American Iron and Metals Company “in a permanent non-competitive situation compared to other companies carrying out similar activities in Quebec”.

The Metropolitan Community of Montreal and the City of Montreal refused to answer questions from The Pressinvoking the judicialization of the case.