(Quebec) The Legault government refuses a new environmental examination of the BAPE on the railway bypass in Lac-Mégantic.
Nearly 11 years after the railway disaster which left 47 dead, groups of expropriated people and environmentalists dissatisfied with the route proposed by the federal government are demanding that the funding promised by Quebec for this controversial project be conditional on the holding of a new favorable assessment from the Office of Public Hearings on the Environment (BAPE).
The Trudeau government is committed to building this route of more than 12 km which would bypass downtown Lac-Mégantic, to prevent once and for all other trains loaded with dangerous materials from passing through the urban area.
But on Monday, opponents argued that the route proposed by Ottawa had more impacts than previously assessed: it would notably damage tens of hectares of agricultural land and wetlands as well as the water table.
“The project before us is no longer the same at all,” lamented the member for Sherbrooke, Christine Labrie, of Québec solidaire (QS), who supports the opponents.
“There have already been quite a few evaluations,” replied the Minister of the Environment, Benoit Charette, in a press scrum in parliament on Tuesday, recalling that the BAPE has already produced two evaluations previously on this issue. “It would be needlessly delaying a project for a population that wants to turn the page,” he argued.
The bill for the bypass – 60% assumed by the federal government and 40% by Quebec – would amount to 1 billion, estimates Mme Labrie, who asks the government to consult the population.
“It would be normal to check if the project still has the support of the community,” she argued during the question period.
Mr. Charette criticized the QS MP for not having communicated with the mayor of Lac-Mégantic, “the main elected municipal official”, who supports the bypass project.
“As much as the City [de Lac-Mégantic] that the people of Lac-Mégantic refuse a third BAPE,” he insisted.
His colleague, the Minister of Transport, Geneviève Guilbault, for her part indicated that the Legault government supported the federal government so that the file could be resolved.
“There is no politics to be had on this issue,” she lectured. I was surprised when I saw the colleague [députée] from Sherbrooke. We have to move on, we have to turn the page, the suffering is still palpable. »
On Monday, Federal Transport Minister Pablo Rodriguez also opposed a new environmental assessment.
At a press conference on Monday, opponents affirmed that during the drying work on the route, 55 million liters of water will be dumped daily into the Chaudière River.
More than 138 drinking water wells would be threatened, as well as an underground lake although protected by ministerial decree, all this to pass only two trains per day, they added. No less than 110 hectares of wetlands would also be destroyed.
Remember that on July 6, 2013, the entire city center of Lac-Mégantic was razed by the worst rail disaster in Canadian history.
A convoy of 72 Montreal Maine and Atlantic cars carrying crude oil was parked in the nearby town of Nantes when its brake system failed after a fire in the locomotive. The train started rolling down the long slope all by itself in the middle of the night. It derailed in the heart of downtown Lac-Mégantic, near restaurants and bars, and killed 47 people.