The extension of Highway 25 to Sainte-Julienne would cause loss of “biodiversity at the local and regional scale” by crossing from end to end a forest qualified as “exceptional”. Quebec still wants to go ahead with the project.
The Ministry of Transport of Quebec (MTQ) published on Wednesday the project notice to lead to the construction of a “national road” of four lanes between Saint-Esprit and Sainte-Julienne, in Lanaudière. Quebec plans a route punctuated with level intersections, 9.2 kilometers long and 90 meters wide.
However, to connect the two villages, the government of François Legault wants to pass the road through a so-called “exceptional” forest area called Saint-Esprit de Montcalm, on the border of Saint-Esprit and Saint-Alexis. “This stand constitutes a rare forest, as well as a refuge forest for threatened or vulnerable species which will be crossed by the right-of-way of the national road”, raises the Ministry of the Environment and the Fight against Climate Change (MELCC ) in a first note sent to the MTQ.
Loss of biodiversity
The wooded area is home to seven species of trees known as “of interest”. “The deforestation of the right-of-way within an exceptional forest ecosystem in which there are several species with status constitutes an issue of loss of biodiversity at the local and regional scale”, writes the MELCC.
It is also provided in the initial project notice that the highway encroaches on a second wooded area, further north, which could lose “more than 880 trees with precarious conservation status”.
“The Ministry will collaborate with the MELCC throughout the preparation and the realization of the project in order to respect the environmental measures required and to limit the repercussions on the environment”, assured the MTQ on Wednesday.
But for the organization Nature Québec, “the government is still launching a pro-auto message in which it has no consideration for the significant loss of natural environments of interest”, lamented the executive director of Nature Québec, Cyril Frazao, Wednesday.
The extension of the A-25 will benefit from the Act respecting the acceleration of certain infrastructure projects, adopted in 2020 by the National Assembly. This law notably reduces the deadlines imposed during the environmental assessment.