A suburb of Montreal has begun the process of dumping an estimated 162 million litres of raw sewage into the St. Lawrence River as they perform repairs on an aging pipe.
Officials say the dump in Longueuil, Que. is a necessary evil after finding a leaking pipe near an underwater tunnel that connects the island of Montreal and its neighbouring city.
The work is expected to last eight days and while people are being told to stay away from the area for the time being, the work isn’t expected to have an impact on the water quality.
“It is not a good idea to touch the water and that if they do come in contact with the water, then to wash with soap and water,” Longueuil spokesperson Louis-Pascal Cyr told reporters on Thursday.
“One of the reasons we chose to do this in November is that we know that activity on the river is minimal at this time of year.”
Canadian cities dumping raw sewage into bodies of water is nothing new. Environment Canada data from 2017 indicates municipalities dumped 215 billion litres of untreated waste water into lakes, rivers and oceans, enough to fill 86,000 Olympic-sized swimming pools.
In 2015, former Montreal Mayor Denis Corderre drew international criticism for dumping five billion litres of sewage into the St. Lawrence for a similar repair. In comparison, the Longueuil dump is just 3 per cent the size of the one in 2015.
Experts agree with the city that this dump shouldn’t have a serious impact on the water quality, but can’t make any guarantees.
“It's almost impossible to say that there is no impact at all because often the impact might be more subtle or it might be more long-term,” said Vivianne Yargeau, chair of the Department of Chemical Engineering at McGill University.
With a report from CTV Montreal’s Rob Lurie
