The McInnis cement plant will have to be more transparent to regain the confidence of the population following episodes of sticky dust, believes Public Health and Environment Minister Benoit Charette.
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“Clearly, there is a breach of trust compared to what had been promised because it was to be a very clean plant, says Doctor Yv Bonnier Viger, regional director of public health in Gaspésie (DRSP). And there is a breakdown because people are not informed in real time of what is happening or what the company is doing to correct the situation. »
Our Bureau of Investigation revealed yesterday that the cement plant had made inaccurate declarations to the Ministry of the Environment for two months in the summer of 2020 by failing to tell it that the sticky dust it emitted was deposited on the land of its neighbors. .
“It is completely unacceptable for McInnis to give us inaccurate information. The company should invest more in responding to the many complaints and concerns of citizens,” reacted the attaché of the Minister of the Environment Benoit Charette, Rosalie Tremblay-Cloutier.
These dust episodes have been occurring regularly for two years now and are causing stress to the population, underlined Dr. Bonnier Viger.
“Not tolerable”
“It is not tolerable to have a company that emits dust randomly, even if it does not cause an immediate health problem, it causes a permanent stress problem which may be dangerous for his health” , he laments.
According to him, to correct the situation, it is imperative that the company be transparent. “It would mean that they are serious in their desire to correct the situation,” adds the doctor.
The latter as well as Ministry officials may have met residents of Port-Daniel-Gascons last week to reassure them about the low risk that this dust would represent, several residents remain worried.
“People have expressed that they don’t trust the company’s data,” he says. Moreover, these data do not make it possible to detect peaks of sticky dust, according to Public Health.
Independent data
Citizens and the Environnement Vert Plus group are asking for independent data in real time.
“One of the claims is that the company […] informs immediately when there are clouds of dust so that, precisely, the information can be collected”, says Yv Bonnier Viger, who supports this suggestion.
The government threatens to use an order to force the cement plant to comply with the law. The latter, however, obtained two extensions of the deadline for submitting its observations. She now has until August 31 to do so.
“This 2e extension request is the last that the department will accept and it is imperative that McInnis comply with our environmental laws and regulations,” said the minister’s attaché.