BRENDA O’FARRELL
The 1019 Report

Almost 10 years to the day after the dam at Pine Lake in Hudson broke, draining the lake and reducing it to a swamp, and almost four years after making an offer to contribute to help cover the cost of replacing the crippled structure in an effort to restore the lake, the town of St. Lazare last week formally rescinded its bid of financial aid.

St. Lazare council unanimously voted to withdraw the offer at its meeting on April 9 after receiving confirmation from the town of Hudson that it had abandoned its plan to build a dam at Pine Lake, at least in the short and medium term, according to St. Lazare city clerk Nathaly Rayneault.

In May 2020, St. Lazare council had approved a plan that would make a maximum of $400,000 available to restore the once-iconic lake along Cameron Road as a fish habitat.

The offer was part of a compensation agreement the municipality reached with Fisheries and Oceans Canada for permission to conduct work to stabilize the banks of the Quinchien River in St. Lazare’s Chaline Valley. The project reprofiled the slopes along the river with the aim to reduce the risk of landslides in the area and allow the Vaudreuil-Soulanges MRC to remove the residential area from being designated as being in a landslide zone.

Part of the conditions to obtain authorization from Fisheries and Oceans Canada to conduct the work along the Quinchien River, which was deemed necessary but threatened the fish habitat in the waterway, included paying compensation to improve the fishing habitat in another area. St. Lazare at that time opted to help its neighbour, offering to direct the compensation payment to the Pine Lake project.

But with the town of Hudson having put that project on hold for now, and St. Lazare required to pay its compensation penalty by the end of 2024, St. Lazare council made the move last week. Rayneault said St. Lazare is awaiting a list of alternative options of possible recipients from Fisheries and Oceans Canada for the $400,000 in compensation owed.

Last April, Hudson council opted not to move forward with a plan to commission a new technical design and drawings for a new dam, siting increased costs, which were described simply at that time as “extremely high.”

Hudson had issued a tender for the new design in November of 2022 after it scrapped the plans approved by the previous council in May of 2021, which had originally pegged the estimated cost of rebuilding the dam at $1.05 million. However, when the final drawings were revealed, they showed a much-larger-than-anticipated concrete structure for the waterway and were accompanied by updated cost projections that put its price tag at about $1.9 million.