We all remember the haste with which Quebec Environment Minister Benoit Charette allowed the destruction of an exceptional ecosystem along the Richelieu River to allow the Northvolt company to build a factory making automobile battery components there. According to the minister, any delay in the implementation of the work could have led the manufacturer to want to set up elsewhere.
The urgency of welcoming the Swedish company to our country was such that, in addition to generously granting it $7.3 billion in public funds, it was necessary to abandon any serious study of the environmental and socio-economic repercussions that its project could have on the region and on all of Quebec. Despite repeated requests from experts, scientists and the population, the leaders of the Coalition avenir Québec (CAQ) stubbornly rejected the numerous requests for review by the BAPE (Bureau d’audiences publiques sur l’environnement) on the Northvolt project and, more broadly, on the energy transition.
But then, in early July, we learned that due to financial difficulties, the Northvolt company had decided to postpone its project in Quebec. It now prefers to concentrate its resources on its main plant, located in Sweden. Not only is there no longer any urgency, but Northvolt’s project in Quebec has been postponed indefinitely! Now that the ecological site has been destroyed and billions of dollars have been committed, can we finally conclude that our governments have been negligent?
A study of the project by the BAPE would undoubtedly have highlighted the lack of economic viability of this giant plant, given the financial difficulties that the Swedish company is experiencing and the current collapse of the battery industry in Europe. Now that we know that there is no longer any urgency, would it not be wise to take all the time necessary to properly assess the effects that the project would have if it were to one day come to fruition?
Every week that passes, new information reaches the citizen groups monitoring the Northvolt file, particularly from independent experts such as biologist and ecotoxicology specialist Daniel Green. This news does nothing to reassure us. Indeed, if the Northvolt plant were to be built, it would be imperative to build settling ponds to contain the toxic wastewater resulting from its processes. The risks of pollution of groundwater and the Richelieu River are real.
A spill or seepage would irreparably damage the water quality that 350,000 people depend on, as well as the biodiversity of the river. The site currently contains arsenic and cadmium, and there are serious concerns about the potential presence of other contaminants. These include cobalt, nickel (bees are very sensitive to nickel, and apple growers in the region rely on these pollinators), manganese and perfluorinated compounds (PFAS).
According to other information, the toxic brines released by the site could be transported to the Stablex hazardous waste dump in Blainville. Unfortunately, or rather fortunately, a BAPE commission has already ruled against the Stablex dump expansion project. It has indeed been shown that in addition to destroying a particularly important ecological environment, the technology used by Stablex to contain toxic materials is not reliable. Leaks could pollute the water in the Blainville peat bog and flow from the watershed into the St. Lawrence River. It should be noted that, even though the BAPE commissioners deemed the Stablex project too unsafe to be authorized, the CAQ government has nonetheless decided to authorize it.
There are many examples in Quebec of disastrous projects resulting from governments’ stubbornness in ignoring the conclusions of environmental assessments, expert opinions and legitimate questions from citizens. Let us mention the forced expropriations (to no avail) of the Mirabel airport; the Bécancour gas plant, which costs Hydro-Québec $120 million each year to remain inactive; or the Port-Daniel cement plant, which has proven to be an economic and environmental fiasco. Will the Northvolt battery component plant be the next trophy to be put in our decision-makers’ blooper reel?
Now that construction of the Northvolt plant has been suspended indefinitely, the Quebec government has no reason to oppose full clarification of its potential environmental and socio-economic consequences. A BAPE review of the Northvolt project is as relevant and necessary today as it was before work began. As is a generic BAPE review of the energy transition. The environment and the energy transition are everyone’s business, citizens. The problems arising from the crisis of life are too important to be left to the improvisation of a few stakeholders.