Contaminated soils in Beauharnois | The multinational Elkem condemned to clean up a vast area

The owners of a vast estate bordering the St. Lawrence River, in Beauharnois, won their case after a ten-year legal battle against Elkem Metal Canada, responsible for the heavy metal contamination of their property.

Jean-Thomas Léveillé
The Press

The Superior Court ordered the company to rehabilitate the soils of Pointe Saint-Louis, an 18-hectare site that still belongs today to the descendants of Senator Charles-Séraphin Rodier, and to pay them nearly $200,000 in damages -interests.

The operation from 1973 to 1991 of the Union Carbide ferromanganese and ferrosilicon plant, acquired in 1984 by the Norwegian multinational Elkem, heavily contaminated the neighboring site of Pointe Saint-Louis.

Quebec had also demanded the restoration of Pointe Saint-Louis and the land of Elkem a few years after the closing of the plant, in vain.

The judgment rendered on September 2 now orders the company to carry out the necessary work to lower the concentration of manganese in the soil on the whole of Pointe Saint-Louis to 1000 micrograms per kilogram (µg/kg).

The court also ordered the removal of massive smelting residues (slag) and other heavy metal residues that were scattered over part of Pointe Saint-Louis as well as on the shores of Lake Saint-Louis, which is the widening of the river at this point.

The company will also have to restore the flora at the end of the site rehabilitation works.

The Court gave a little less than three years to Elkem Metal Canada, which is now owned by Chinese interests, to carry out all the work.

Other contaminated sites?

The commission of inquiry from the Bureau d’audiences publiques sur l’environnement (BAPE) on the restoration plan for the banks of the St. Lawrence River bordering the site of the former factory, in 2010, revealed the extent of the contamination caused by the company.

In particular, we learned that the contamination of the soils of Pointe Saint-Louis with manganese, which was released into the air by the factory and which fell around, exceeds in places the limit even for industrial use.

A residential area with a school, a childcare center and parks is also a few hundred meters away.

The Ministry of the Environment and the Fight against Climate Change had not yet responded to questions from The Press at the time of this writing, particularly on its desire to sample soils in the area.

Authorized to pollute in Saguenay

The land where the former Elkem factory in Beauharnois was located now belongs to Groupe Saint-Pierre, which had towed the Kathryn Spirita decrepit freighter whose laborious dismantling has caused a lot of ink to flow.

Elkem Metal Canada, on the other hand, is still present in Saguenay, in the borough of Chicoutimi, where it manufactures ferrosilicon, which is used in the manufacture of steel and cast iron, and silicon metal, which is used in the manufacture of silicone. , aluminum and various chemicals used in electronic components.

Its plant is also part of the short list of eight industrial establishments that Quebec authorizes to derogate from the environmental standards in force.

It is allowed to generate an annual average of fine particles of 244 micrograms per cubic meter (µg/m^⁠3), more than 8 times the Quebec limit of 30 µg/m^⁠3.

It is also subject to a limit of 456 µg/m^⁠3 for total particles, which is almost four times more than the Quebec limit of 120 µg/m^⁠3.

Elkem Metal Canada President Jean Villeneuve told The Press “We have taken note of the judgment and are in the process of analyzing it carefully. »

The Hone-Bellemare family said they would reserve their comments until the expiry of the appeal period, which is 30 days after the judgment.