More than ten years after the Lac-Mégantic rail tragedy, preliminary work on the bypass is beginning, federal Transport Minister Pablo Rodriguez announced Friday.
Ottawa pays for the work, but the municipality is in charge of the process, assured Mr. Rodriguez, who was at the scene of the tragedy in the company of the mayor, Julie Morin.
He also affirmed that the federal government had reached an agreement with Canadian Pacific Kansas City for this work.
“(The agreement) will make it possible to launch a call for tenders to hire the contractor who will eventually build the bypass,” he explained.
“This is the start of something really big.” »
The total costs of the project are not yet known, as the federal government is waiting for the tender process to be concluded.
The Lac-Mégantic bypass, with a planned length of 12.5 km, aims to prevent freight trains from traveling directly in the municipality’s downtown, in order to avoid a new tragedy.
On July 6, 2013, a major fire broke out overnight when a train of 72 tank cars derailed in the heart of the city. The tragedy claimed the lives of 47 people.
In response, the Coalition of Collateral Victims is still demanding that the bypass project be put an end to.
Taking into account environmental and hydrological data, the route “does not resolve either the causes or the effects of the 2013 tragedy, it is less safe than the current route,” says the organization.
There would thus be “irreversible impacts on the water table, on the quality of drinking water for a large number of citizens”, estimates the group.
More details will follow.