This text is taken from the Courrier de l’économie of September 19, 2022. To subscribe, click here.
Urban sprawl has an impact on water supply and demand. An increase in population in a region first increases the need for the precious resource. Then, the construction of new neighborhoods has the effect of eating away at the areas of natural environments and agricultural land needed to capture water and replenish underground reserves. And this last aspect remains to say the least underestimated and misunderstood, underline the specialists.
Indeed, the municipalities are not obliged to assess the resource on their territory before issuing permits for the construction of new districts. Carlos Martinez is president of the Order of Geologists of Quebec (OGQ), an organization that represents more than 1,100 specialists: “We are concerned because of the apparent laxity of the laws and the fact that municipalities and RCMs are responsible for defining and to regulate the uses and conservation of this natural heritage. »
“Delegating to municipalities and RCMs the professional and scientific burden of analyzing the water capacities on their territory is inappropriate”, he decides. Why ? First, there is the question of costs. They are too high for small and medium-sized municipalities. But beyond economic considerations, “the decentralization of working methods” does not make it possible to standardize knowledge of this precious resource. Result: it becomes difficult to assess the possible repercussions of “the exploitation of water resources without control measures”, he notes.
Several unknowns
In addition, these analyzes are complex to say the least. “Analyzing the quality of groundwater supply depends on several factors, including the composition of the subsoil, the types of activities above and across the catchment area, and the recharge capacity. These are some must-have examples of what needs to be considered. »
The OGQ proposes a solution to put water at the heart of the development of the territory: create a Bureau des ressources hydriques du Québec. He would be responsible for defining resource capacity in areas where real estate development is taking place. Then, it could also arbitrate the conflicts of use which are likely to become more and more frequent as well as to impose fines on “users with deleterious behavior”.
A major challenge given that the number of municipalities experiencing water stress has jumped over the past year. For fear of a water shortage, Saint-Lin–Laurentides and Sutton have limited residential construction. In Montérégie, Saint-Rémi ran out of the precious resource while Lanoraie wants to dig a well to pump 16% more water. For its part, Saint-Hippolyte forces real estate developers who have to dig more than four wells to file a hydrogeological study.