On June 12, Radio-Canada informed us that Benoit Charette, Minister of the Environment, was putting pressure on the mayor of Blainville to allow the expansion of the toxic industrial waste site of the American company Stablex, thus appearing to go against the Bureau d’audiences publiques en environnement (BAPE) which recommended, in 2023, not to authorize this project.
The Coalition of Environmental Groups – Stablex File has since become aware of the fact that the ministry issued the multinational, on June 10, an operating permit for the next five years (from June 2024 to June 2029).
Many questions come to mind. The least we can say is that this news has not made the headlines despite its importance.
How come the minister has not made any public statement on this subject?
The Ministry of the Environment, in an article from The Press+took the liberty of attacking the quality of the analysis of the samples carried out by the Coalition, which shows contamination of water and sediment. At the same time, the ministry stated in a press release that it itself carried out a rigorous inspection and sampling that attests to the site’s compliance.
If so, why was the raw data from this sampling not made public? Why was the analysis not made public? Why have the standards used (which can greatly modify the conclusions of an analysis) not been made public? Was Stablex informed of the ministry’s visit before sampling or not? Is the 320-fold exceedance of the cadmium standard recorded by citizen sampling at a site near Stablex just the tip of the iceberg or an anomaly as the minister claims?
In addition, the Coalition sent the minister, on May 16, a list of requests so that, if an authorization had to be renewed, we could ensure that any contamination was avoided. Have the Coalition’s requests for greater transparency been included in the new permit? Has the minister taken into account the request to limit Stablex to the existing cell 5?
The Coalition also questions the importance that the current government gives to the consultation process represented by the BAPE. For the Northvolt file, the idea of a complete BAPE was in fact rejected by the Minister of the Environment. For Stablex, on the other hand, there was indeed a BAPE, but we do not seem to want to take it into account. Does the minister now consider that the BAPE is useless for major projects in Quebec?
Could a national public consultation on the future of landfilling toxic waste in Quebec, as the Coalition requested, still be useful now that authorization has been issued for the next five years to Stablex? ? Does the minister now consider that his main role is to support businesses rather than defending the environment and actively fighting the climate crisis?
The list of questions is long and the answers absent, for the moment.
It is time for the Minister of the Environment to show much more transparency in the Stablex file. The population of Blainville and all of Quebec has the right to answers.
*Co-signed this letter: Eau Secours; Mothers on the Front Lines, Mille-Îles Rivers (MAF-RDMI); Regional Environmental Action Movement (MARE); Society to Overcome Pollution (SVP); Landfill Alert Coalition Rivière-du-Nord (CAER).