Wastewater spills into Quebec’s waterways did not take a break in 2022. In fact, the number of wastewater discharges jumped in 2022 to reach 57,263 spills, reveals the rankings of the Fondation Rivières published every year.
These spills occur particularly when sewer networks are saturated during heavy rains. Water contaminated by fecal matter is therefore released into watercourses without treatment.
Between 2021 and 2022, the number of spills increased from 36,391 to 57,263. “But 2021 was a record year with little precipitation. There were droughts almost throughout southern Quebec and very little intense precipitation,” points out André Bélanger, general director of the Rivières Foundation, in an interview with Duty. “2022 looks a lot more like 2017, 2018 and 2019.”
The rainy summer of 2023, however, suggests poor results. “It won’t be pretty,” warns Mr. Bélanger.
By analyzing data from the Ministry of the Environment, the Fight against Climate Change, Wildlife and Parks (MELCCFP), the Rivières Foundation has been establishing a ranking of cities since 2017 in order to evaluate their performance. But since the quantity of liters of water discharged into waterways is not measured, the organization has developed an index of intensity of spills per capita, which makes it possible to compare cities taking into account the size of the overflowing structure and the duration of the overflows.
Among the ten large cities in Quebec, Longueuil sits at the top with the highest per capita intensity index, followed by Saguenay and Trois-Rivières. Montreal appears at 7e rank in this list of large cities, even if the number of spills (1866) is greater there than in Longueuil. “Longueuil has always been the bad student because it comes from very far away,” notes Mr. Bélanger. “But our objective was not to say that things are not going well in Longueuil, but rather to “evaluate the results of the efforts that have been made.”
The Rivières Foundation has thus assessed the progress in the performance of cities since 2017. In this regard, Longueuil ranks favorably, taking second place among large cities. However, it is surpassed by Trois-Rivières which displays the best improvement for the period 2017-2022.
Among all the Quebec cities evaluated, all sizes combined, the best improvements go to Plessisville, Beauharnois and Sainte-Marie. The municipalities of Thetford Mines, La Tuque and Lacolle are those where the damage was the most significant.
The Rivières Foundation, however, deplores the fact that too many municipalities have still not equipped their structures with an electronic overflow recorder making it possible to measure the duration of water discharges. André Bélanger emphasizes that only six sanctions were imposed on the 194 municipalities in violation.