A survey of To have to tells us that the Service 3R Valorisation sorting center, a verruca in Montreal East, is overflowing to the point of threatening the safety of the few pedestrians who dare to venture into this soulless industrial zone. The problem is that despite numerous notices of non-compliance and more than $500,000 owed to the Quebec tax authorities, the company continues to benefit from a reprieve from the Ministry of the Environment.
Big deal. For ten years—ten years! —, 3R Valorisation is in the crosshairs of the very pugnacious Ministry of the Environment. Breaches of environmental standards were noted during six site inspections: height of piles of materials and storage areas not respected, debris falling on neighboring properties, leachate flow, non-keeping of the register of materials entering the site . For the whole mess, departmental inspectors issued five notices of non-compliance and three fines, unpaid, totaling the ridiculous sum of $17,500.
And so that we are not mistaken about the seriousness of the case, the Ministry of the Environment recently reduced the company’s obligations. The latter benefits from a reprieve until April 2024 to reduce the pile of debris from 9 meters to 5 meters in height, in accordance with its certificate of authorization. The director of the Quebec Common Front for Ecological Waste Management, Karel Ménard, used a harsh expression, but representative of the fed up of environmentalists, to describe the relationship between the Ministry of the Environment and 3R Valorisation. It’s “almost a complicity,” he said.
The unreal aspect of this site, where an impressive variety of building materials is piled up pell-mell, forces one to question the very name of the place. Where does the territory of the recovery site end and where does that of the dump begin? Moreover, 3R Valorisation is accumulating financial difficulties and pitfalls in the modernization of its facilities. Its director of operations and signatory of the agreement with the Ministry of the Environment, Jean-François Boisvert, has had numerous run-ins with the law and a conviction for extortion in 2009.
For all these considerations, there is reason to be highly skeptical about the chances of recovery of this site. This is a major problem, and the inconvenience for people who live nearby is very real. On a windy day, fine dust settles on terraces, cars and houses. On the scale of the territory of eastern Montreal, 3R Valorisation’s footprint is tiny, given the amount of land that will require decontamination in this impoverished sector in terms of urban development. It is a powerful reminder of the constraints and challenges that await the Legault government in its ambition to revitalize the entire territory in the east of the metropolis. In the current regulatory context, made up of ministerial laxity on the one hand and acquired rights on the other, will its promises to decontaminate eastern Montreal be honored within a realistic horizon?
More broadly, this survey reminds us of the excessive fragility of the environmental sector in Quebec, where abound companies that are sometimes rogue, sometimes inept in their processes for recycling residual materials; companies that have greatly benefited from the laxity of provincial and municipal authorities towards them. If angelism is the only compass of the Ministry of the Environment, do not expect miracles. A green revolution based on companies that do not care about their social responsibilities will be nothing more than an empty slogan.