Sarah Rennie – LJI reporter
The municipality of Ormstown hosted a roundtable discussion with neighbouring municipalities, local organizations, and government officials on June 25 to address common concerns stemming from illegal construction-waste dumping and backfilling.
Headlines recently decried the Haut-Saint-Laurent as the “garbage dump of Quebec” after a series of investigative articles published in the Journal de Montreal. The articles reported on the results of a study by McGill University’s Leadership for the Ecozoic project that revealed the potential scale and impact of dumping within the Chateauguay River watershed.
The Ormstown meeting, which highlighted several disconnects between provincial legislation and municipalities’ ability to enforce it, followed the media reports as well as a press release issued by the municipality denouncing government inaction specifically on the part of the Ministère de l’Environnement, de la Lutte contre les changements climatiques, de la Faune et des Parcs. According to Ormstown officials, the situation described in the articles is real and alarming, but it extends much beyond the Montérégie-Ouest region.
Ormstown mayor Christine McAleer referred to the gathering as an exploratory meeting aimed at determining whether area municipalities and stakeholders can work together to find solutions to this common problem.
Those in the room included representatives from the Fédération de l’UPA de la Montérégie and the Haut-Saint-Laurent syndicate, members of the Ormstown administration and council, both municipal inspectors, representatives from the municipalities of Saint-Urbain, Sainte-Clotilde, Sainte-Martine, Franklin, the OBV SCABRIC, and Huntingdon MNA Carole Mallette.
Possible dump sites
As a starting point for discussions, masters student Alex DePani and McGill cartographer and Franklin resident Dan Garand of the Leadership for the Ecozoic network presented the results of their research.
Garand noted that citizens and municipalities began to sound the alarm over the number of trucks in the region in 2023. He and DePani began analyzing archived satellite images last winter to study the evolution of the rural landscape within the watershed and look for evidence of dumping or backfilling activity. They identified 284 potential sites of concern, including 16 documented sites where loads of construction material are known to have been illegally dumped. Groundwater contamination has also been recorded at one site on Route 201 in Franklin.
The pair allege that many of the remaining undocumented sites, including more than 70 in the Haut-Saint-Laurent, are “preoccupying,” and could be illegal dump sites.
Ways forward
Following the presentation, McAleer opened the floor to all participants. Several spoke about the absence of official sites that can legally receive construction waste, while questioning whether any such were easily accessible. Another possibility discussed was the creation of a common bylaw across municipalities, after a representative from Franklin noted a reduction in the number of trucks after the municipality passed stricter anti-dumping regulations. Some municipal representatives pointed out, however, that bylaws can lead to additional expenses and complications for small farms.
Sylvain Cazes, the political attaché for Mallette, cautioned that it was important to distinguish between illegal dumping and agricultural backfilling. “The problem is contaminated fill, and the people who do not care about the environment who are doing this for money,” he said. “That is the challenge, and it is something that can’t be handled by provincial or municipal governments alone.”
Cazes noted that provincial legislation came into force in 2024 as well as the traceability program, Traces Québec, which tracks and manages the movement of contaminated soil within the province. He suggested this could be used as a tool for municipalities to quickly identify whether a truck is carrying registered materials.
Some in the room questioned whether there were enough inspectors to ensure the legislation was being properly implemented. Others suggested more responsibility be delegated to municipalities and local inspectors, who are currently powerless to enforce provincial law. McAleer quickly interjected, pointing out that giving municipalities a greater capacity to act is a good idea, so long as the necessary funds to accomplish this are also made available.
The Ormstown mayor suggested that raising awareness was also important, noting this was one of the main goals behind the sensational headlines and media coverage. “We have to make people understand there is an emergency, and that we are all involved in this,” she said. “We need to send an urgent message about this issue that is becoming increasingly dramatic for municipalities in terms of drinking water.”
McAleer ended the meeting noting that the group had identified a few leads to start working on to ensure the issue of illegal dumping remains in the spotlight.