Horne Foundry | Lots of water at a low price

The Horne Foundry pays a “derisory” sum for the large quantities of water it draws, indignant various observers, who are also worried that the City of Rouyn-Noranda depends on the company for its water supply. .

$21,000 for 8.3 billion of liters of water

The Horne Foundry paid barely $21,000 to the Quebec state for the 8.3 billion liters of water it drew for its operations in 2021, an amount attributable to the low water royalties in effect in the Quebec and to a 75-year-old agreement that the government now intends to amend.

The Rouyn-Noranda company belonging to the Anglo-Swiss multinational trading company Glencore pays rent of $1,315.30 per year to the Quebec government for the operation on public land of a dam and an intake. water at the outlet of Lac Dufault, just over two kilometers north of the smelter.

Glencore thus enjoys the right granted by a “decree” of the Council of Ministers of January 10, 1946 to Noranda Mines Limited, then recorded in an emphyteutic lease signed on November 20, 1947, documents that The Press obtained by the Act respecting access to documents held by public bodies and the protection of personal information.

The rental of three parcels totaling 21 acres (8.5 hectares), on which there was a dam previously built by the company to raise the level of Lac Dufault as well as an access road and a power line, had then been set at $500 per year; the rent was increased to the current amount when the lease was renewed in 1971.

Renewed from year to year since, the lease “is still in force to this day”, confirmed to The Press the Ministry of the Environment, the Fight against Climate Change, Wildlife and Parks (MELCCFP) of Quebec – the Ministry had first affirmed in November not to hold “none” of these documents, before sending them at The Press December 28.

The agreement allowing the Horne Foundry to draw water from Lac Dufault “is absurd and deserves to be reviewed”, declared to The Press the Minister of the Environment, Benoit Charette, who says he was informed “recently”. Minister Charette also announced his intention to review the regulations on water retaining structures so that this type of lease is adapted “to current and future economic realities”.

royalty on the water

In addition to this annual rent, “the Horne Foundry is subject to the royalty payable on the use of water”, like any organization taking more than 75 m³ per day, said a spokeswoman for the Ministry, Sara Bouvelle.

At $0.0025 per cubic meter (m³), according to the rate applicable to it in the Regulation respecting the dues payable for the use of waterthe 8,305,042 m³ (8.3 billion litres) drawn in 2021 by the foundry for its needs thus cost it $20,762.61.

The quantities of water withdrawn and the royalties paid in Quebec are protected by industrial secrecy, preventing the public from knowing what companies consume and pay; the case of the Horne Foundry differs because it supplies water to the City of Rouyn-Noranda (see other text), from which The Press obtained the quantities withdrawn in 2021.

In addition to the water drawn for its own needs, the Horne Foundry thus withdrew 4,069,125 m³ to supply Rouyn-Noranda, paying a royalty of $10,173; the city pays the company for the raw water it receives, approximately $125,000 per year, under a cost-sharing agreement for the maintenance of the company’s facilities.

The Legault government undertook in December to revise upwards the amount of the royalty and to make the data public.

System ” ineffective »

The amount paid by the Horne Foundry for water used for its own needs shows that the Quebec royalty system is “ineffective”, laments Olivier Pitre, general manager of the Abitibi-Témiscamingue Underground Water Company.

This royalty has only been imposed since 2010, in Quebec, recalls Émile Cloutier-Brassard, mining analyst for the environmental organization Eau Secours, who is surprised at the “absolutely derisory” amount of rent demanded by Quebec at the Horne Foundry.

“These ancestral rights gave them the right to have water almost free until 2010,” he observes.

“It’s a historical aberration that has never been changed,” adds lawyer Anne-Sophie Doré, from the Quebec Center for Environmental Law (CQDE).

Water charges must be increased, plead the three organizations.

At the current rate, “it’s as if it were a resource that we endlessly supplied to industry,” laments Émile Cloutier-Brassard, who points out that water is becoming scarce even in Quebec, as evidenced by the shortages faced by some municipalities in the south of the province.

Contacted by The PressGlencore said through its spokesman Alexis Segal that it “meets its legal and regulatory obligations and pays all fees required of it, including those related to its use of water”.

” Addiction of the City against Glencore

The City of Rouyn-Noranda depends on the Horne Foundry for its water supply, a unique situation in Quebec that places it in a situation of “dependence”, according to various observers.

The company is required to ship a maximum of 3.4 million imperial gallons (15,457 m³) of raw water at the City’s treatment plant.

The agreement signed on 1^er June 1965 between what was then Noranda Mines Limited and the City of Noranda originally stipulated that the needs of the company took precedence over those of the municipality and that if the quantity of water available proved “insufficient to meet the needs of the Company, of the City [de Noranda et de celle] of Rouyn, the City will then have to take only the quantity of water that the Company will make available to it”.

The agreement was amended in 1998 and now provides that in the event that the water available is insufficient for the needs of the two parties, they will “agree to determine” the quantity that will be sent to the City.

The tariffs have also been modified: rather than a fixed amount, the price of raw water is now based on a calculation based on the quantity consumed by the City, the total quantity drawn by the company and the operating costs.

“On average, raw water costs between $120,000 and $125,000 per year” for the city, The Press its director of communications, Anne-Marie Nadeau.

The contract also sets out the price at which the City sells treated water to the Horne Foundry, which paid $479,673.92 into municipal coffers in 2021.

A “beautiful solution”, says the mayor

The City’s water supply from the Horne Foundry is “really a great solution for Rouyn-Noranda,” says its mayor, Diane Dallaire.

“The main user is in charge of the supply, for us there is a logic to that and the pricing, from a financial point of view, is at its fair value,” she told The Press during an interview conducted in the fall.

Things would be done differently today, recognizes the mayor, but she does not “see why” the current agreement should be changed.

“We are not going to build [un autre réseau] simultaneously,” she says.

This agreement is the only case of a private water intake that supplies a municipal drinking water production facility supplying more than 500 people in Quebec, indicated to The Press the Ministry of the Environment, the Fight against Climate Change, Wildlife and Parks (MELCCFP).

Report of unequal strength

The situation “places the municipality in a kind of dependence”, observes Danielle Pilette, professor of municipal management at the University of Quebec in Montreal (UQAM).

Such a thing would no longer be possible today in the name of good governance, she believes.

The balance of power between the two parties is unequal and the City “is not in a position to negotiate its access to water as it should”, deplores Émile Cloutier-Brassard, mining analyst for the environmental organization Eau Secours. .

The situation also places the City in a delicate position with respect to the pollution generated by the Horne Foundry.

“In this context, does the City have complete freedom to express itself when it is consulted on threats to public health? asks Danielle Pilette.

Émile Cloutier-Brassard is of the opinion not: “It frankly limits the ability of the City to take a position on issues related to the foundry”.