Joel Ceausu – The Suburban LJI Reporter
“The city cannot just tell citizens to install backflow valves and shrug their shoulders” says Vana Nazarian.
At city council last week, the Côte-de-Liesse councillor slammed the Plante administration’s funding of water services in Montreal’s 2023-2032 $24 billion capital investment program (PDI). The city has a responsibility because throughout the years issued building permits to build residences in riverbeds, basins and problem areas she says, adding the administration needs “to establish a vision of major projects, instead it is selling us the idea of sponge parks.”
Nazarian panned the amounts slated over the next decade (some $6.1 billion); despite a $788 million hike from the previous plan, “these amounts represent only a very small part of the required investments,”
and maintains that recent years’ investments averaged less than $500 million while some $1.3 billion was required.
“During the 2023 PDI, the administration had planned to invest $763 million for the year 2023, while this year, it plans $701 million for 2024.” So, while the general PDI increases, “in the short term it will be less money.” More money is spent on “maintenance” and “catch-up” operations than yearly investments in the water service says the opposition critic for water infrastructure, adding while work is underway to mitigate risks in the most at-risk pipes or those likely to cause the most damage, the department has neither the budget nor the capacity to do otherwise.
The administration has made renewing secondary waterworks and sewer networks a priority, investing $1.8 invested over a decade, including replacement of lead service lines. “Additional investments are also planned for the primary aqueduct network ($509 million), retention structures ($339.5 million) and primary sewer network ($244 million).” Nazarian is unimpressed, noting the city has replaced 40 of 69 kms of targeted drinking water pipes, and 55 of 85 kms of sewer replacement/rehabilitation. “The administration has, in six years of management, never reached its targets for replacement or renewal of aqueducts and rarely reached those for the sewers.”
Drainage projects investment increases $188 million to upgrade interceptors, collectors and retention structures, but she says it’s unclear which neighbourhoods will be prioritized as studies carried out by the water service demonstrate need for rapid intervention in hard-hit sectors, but designs “have not yet been initiated by the administration.”
“Do we need draining parks? Certainly. Do we need to integrate them into planning? Absolutely. But will the drainage plan solve the problems of the water service or vulnerable citizens affected by floods? Absolutely not… Citizens of Parthenais, Montgomery, Cadillac, Coronation, Fielding, Lanouette and Victoria streets, to name a few, will always live in uncertainty until the work is done,” noting sums kick in in 2026 and there are no details about locations of planned projects. “No ideas, zero details, no plans or visions but good news, we have funds planned!”
She lauds the additional $93 million for multifunctional green infrastructure to develop 40 resilient parks in 2024 and 2025 but deplores the dearth of large-scale projects, contending most parks being designed are low volume, offering minimal impact during torrential rains. “I’m not saying they shouldn’t be done, but the administration should focus its energy on projects with the potential to have a significant impact on flooded citizens.”
“All projects under this administration have doubled or tripled in cost, in time. This is not a random observation, it is a systematic situation. In six years, this administration has not been able to ensure the sustainability of the water service and today we are at this point. We add amounts here and there, we put band-aids on the problems, but what is the vision?”
Nazarian cited the cancelled major Leduc collector project in her own Saint-Laurent borough, whose plans and specifications were completed in 2020-2021, and meant to address 13 episodes of torrential rain over 20 years. “The requirement at the time was 68,000 m3 which today is nearly 112,000 cubic metres. In the meantime, the absorption capacity of the drainage parks is 15,000 cubic metres. We are very far from meeting the need!”
Resilient parks, plazas and streets absorb water otherwise headed for sewers, but are no panacea she says. “It’s an illusion to think so. Other cities with recurrent flooding problems have decided to carry out both green infrastructure and heavy structural works.”
While the city plan includes programs to maintain drinking water assets, e.g. treatment plants ($422.9 million) and reservoirs and pumping stations ($97.8 million), Nazarian says “our sewers are overflowing, we produce so much clean drinking water that is wasted or rather lost in our aging and leaking infrastructures.”