Luskville

Municipality of Pontiac scrambles to replace culvert before winter

Larose considers sidestepping federal regulations

K.C. Jordan, LJI Journalist

The Municipality of Pontiac’s council passed a motion at Tuesday’s meeting asking the municipality’s provincial and federal representatives to accelerate the reconstruction of a culvert that was washed out in a mid-July rainstorm.

The culvert on Luskville’s Thérien Road has not been repaired since, leaving residents with no connection to Highway 148 other than a temporary detour through a neighbouring construction company.

Some residents aren’t happy with this option, saying an already unsafe detour will become almost impossible to navigate once the snow falls.

“There’s no way we can take this road in the winter without it being dangerous,” said Thérien Road resident Isabelle Girouard, adding that the culvert on the detour is only wide enough for one car and has no railing on either side.

“If it gets slippery, you fall down 12 or 13 feet because there’s no railing.”

Before the Thérien culvert can be replaced, the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) is requiring the municipality to submit two documents: first, a report describing the culvert clearing and recovery work; and second, a regulatory review application to replace the culvert that makes sure the proposed work would follow all provincial and federal environmental regulations. 

The stream underneath the culvert is recognized as a fish habitat and the DFO wants to make sure any repair work to the culvert will not harm the habitat or the fish that live there.

To date, the municipality has not submitted either of those documents to the DFO, citing trouble getting cooperation from all levels of government.

Municipality of Pontiac (MoP) mayor Roger Larose said in an interview Monday afternoon they have been getting conflicting information from the engineering firm they hired through the Fédération Québécoise des Municipalités (FQM), which has had three different people dealing with their file since July.

Some of them have been telling MoP to hire a biologist to study the potential impact on the fish ecosystem, while others have been saying not to bother and just to proceed with the work.

“We keep having to start over every time,” he said, adding it has been frustrating getting different messages about how to proceed.

The motion passed at last week’s meeting asked MP Sophie Chatel and MNA André Fortin to raise this issue in their respective governments, but Larose has since said that because the DFO is just following the rules, there is not much they can do to accelerate the process.

He said it’s hard to get any results from motions like these because the representatives are at different levels of government and can’t work together.

Residents such as Girouard have voiced their concerns to Mayor Larose about the detour, saying they want the culvert replaced before winter, which is arriving fast.

She understands the need to protect the fish habitat, but now in mid-October she sees the work as urgent.

“I feel like the provincial and federal plateaus of government are not understanding the urgency of the situation,” she said.

Larose also feels the crunch. This Wednesday night (Oct. 16) he is holding a public meeting where he is going to discuss the possibility of proceeding with the construction of the culvert without submitting the required paperwork.

There could be consequences to going ahead with the work. The municipality won’t get provincial or federal funding, meaning it will have to pay for the $150,000 culvert it has already been looking at, in addition to any labour costs or additional costs.

“We could also get a fine,” he said, adding that he wants to use the meeting as an opportunity to hear how residents feel about the decision.

“I’ll bring up to council, it’s not my decision,” he said.

The DFO declined THE EQUITY’s request for a phone interview, but in prior communications with the department, communications advisor Véronic Lavoie confirmed it had not received the documents required to begin replacing the culvert.

“The Municipality of Pontiac must provide DFO with a report describing the culvert cleaning and recovery work,” she wrote in an email.

“Following this work, the municipality of Pontiac will have to submit a regulatory review application to DFO to replace the culvert, which is located in fish habitat,” she wrote, adding that the work cannot result in the harmful alteration, disruption or destruction of fish habitat.

She said both documents are required before they can authorize any work on the culvert.
Girouard feels that Mayor Larose and the council are doing what they can to help her with the limited resources they have. She acknowledges how few resources small municipalities like hers have, and that Larose has other things on his plate that he needs to do.

In September the council held a special sitting to announce they would hire Pontiac transit provider TransporAction to collect the one school-aged child who lives on Thérien Road — Girouard’s daughter — at her door and drop her at the bus stop on Highway 148.

Girouard is happy the municipality is ensuring her child will get to the bus safely, but for her this is only a temporary solution.She wants work to begin on the culvert so she and other residents of Thérien Road can resume their normal lives.

She feels as if she has been caught in the crossfire of all these levels of government, and that nobody at the provincial or federal level is listening to her concerns.

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Province delays highway construction in Luskville

Sophie Kuijper Dickson, LJI Journalist

A portion of the road work scheduled to be completed this fall on the four-lane section of Highway 148 in Luskville has been pushed until next spring due to budgetary restrictions at the provincial level. 

Because the long-awaited highway repairs were already scheduled to last until Dec. 2025, Quebec’s Ministry of Transport (MTQ) decided to reschedule the remainder of this year’s work until the spring of 2025. 

This means for now, the contractor hired to do the work will repave the east-bound section of the highway, and then pack up their crew until next year.

“The contracts are still in place, this is just a temporary suspension of the work,” Marie-Josée Audet, spokesperson for MTQ’s Outaouais office, told THE EQUITY in French. 

She explained unforeseen developments in other projects in the region ate up more of the year’s total budget than they had been designated. This meant the MTQ had to cut some projects short to respect their budget allocation. 

“They got authorization in late August to start, and by mid-September they were told, ‘Stop everything, put it back.’ It’s a complete and utter mess,”  said Pontiac MNA André Fortin. 

“They were told by Quebec City they needed to cut some money, and they basically cut everything they could behind the scenes, pushed back some projects that hadn’t been started yet, and still they hadn’t met their objectives in terms of what they needed to cut so they cut projects that had just recently started.”

“It was pretty surprising because we didn’t receive no letter or nothing from the MTQ to let us know it was going to happen,” said Municipality of Pontiac mayor Roger Larose. 

He said the highway work has been requested for at least six years, since the new dépanneur was opened at the entrance to the four-lanes and it became clear the highway needed to be adjusted to ensure safe entrance and exit of the business’s parking lot.

“Everything takes time, we understand that. But this project was going on for years. There’s no reason the government didn’t plan the money on that one.”

Audet explained the section of the highway currently under construction will be repaved and restored to a safe condition so it can be reopened for use before the winter. 

She said it was too early to tell how this delay would affect the project’s scheduled end-date.

Roadwork on Boulevard des Allumetières in Gatineau has also been delayed due to the same budget limitations, according to a report from Radio-Canada last week. 

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Heavy rains wash out more roads in Pontiac municipality

Liz Draper, LJI Reporter

The Pontiac region received 36.3 millimeters of rain on Friday as the remnants of tropical storm Debby hit southern Quebec, according to data from Environment Canada.

The torrential rains wreaked havoc across this corner of the province, flooding basements, blasting apart beaver dams and drowning out the culverts and ditches designed to control the water.

While Pontiac’s share of the downpour was less than half of the 83 millimeters Environment Canada reported as having fallen across Gatineau that day, the rain still did some damage along the eastern edge of the Municipality of Pontiac.

In a Facebook post on Saturday, the municipality warned residents of several points where roads had been damaged.

The first, and hardest hit, was chemin Elm, on the section between Highway 148 and chemin Terry-Fox.
Pontiac mayor Roger Larose explained a culvert under the road had overflown and the water had washed away a good portion of the road’s edge.

“By tomorrow night I think it should be open,” he told THE EQUITY on Monday afternoon, confirming the Tuesday night reopening originally predicted by the municipality on Saturday.

Other damage included a culvert washout on the western portion of chemin Kawartha, which was repaired by Saturday evening, and some damage along chemin Crégheur in Heyworth, which was “passable with caution,” the municipality wrote in its post.

This is the second time this summer heavy rains have caused road washouts in this municipality.

In July, another downpour caused the culvert on chemin Thérien to give way completely, forcing the residents of the road to use an elaborate detour.

“The roads should hold on pretty good, but it always depends what you get. Lately we’re getting storms like crazy,” Larose said. “Our ditches and culverts, they can only take so much.”

Mayor Larose explained that after significant delays with trying to get the culvert replaced, the municipality has requested a special emergency designation from the province which he said will help expedite the process and do away with some significant administrative hurdles.

Larose said he’s hoping to open conversations with his residents and with the MRC des Collines-de-l’Outaouais around how best to manage the water as it moves from the Gatineau hills down to the Ottawa River, as he anticipates this won’t be the last time his municipality has to deal with a sudden, and significant, load of water.

“This time I think we were right on it because it happened Friday afternoon and everybody was still [in the office],” Larose said, explaining this made it possible for his team to respond quickly. “But the citizens will have to get ready too, because this is going to happen again.”

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Heavy rains wash out roads in Luskville

KC Jordan, LJI Reporter

Two roads in Luskville were washed out as a result of Monday afternoon’s thunderstorm, causing disruptions to local residents.
One wash-out occurred on rue Thérien, just north of Highway 148; the other on chemin Parker, on the south side of the 148 almost directly across the road.
Mario Allen, director general of the Municipality of Pontiac, said the water level in the stream flowing underneath rue Thérien got too high, overwhelming the culvert that runs underneath and taking out the road completely.
“The culvert wouldn’t take it, and now the road is gone.” he said.
Allen said this isn’t the first time this road has been washed out, noting that in 2017 a heavy rainfall took out parts of Highway 148 and some of its adjoining roads, including rue Thérien.
He said the stream’s water level normally runs pretty high in the spring months due to runoff from the mountains, but the level is not normally so high so late in the season.
Workers from the municipality responded to the scene on Tuesday, creating large sand hills to prevent people from trying to travel on the road.
Residents of rue Thérien ordinarily don’t have an alternative exit, but the municipality created a makeshift detour onto the property of Nugent Construction so that residents could enter and leave.
“Council met those people last Friday and they are all aware of the situation,” Allen said.
He noted the municipality already had plans for an eventual detour through Nugent Construction’s property because the culvert had already been slated for work.
“We were expecting to do the work probably this fall to change the culvert, and in order to change the culvert, well, people will need a detour.”

He said they were able to provide an alternative solution for residents of rue Thérien much faster thanks to these already-existing detour plans.
He said the municipality needs to contact the provincial environment ministry before any work can be done to repair the culvert and the road.
“Approval must be obtained from the Quebec government first,” he said, adding at that point they “will go for tenders and then will proceed.”
He said he is not sure how long the process will take, but said it could be until the fall before they are able to get approvals for the work.
The other wash-out happened on chemin Parker, on the opposite side of Highway 148 from rue Thérien.
“When the water went over the road it created erosion, and the next morning we went in and fixed the erosion,” Allen said.
No detour was needed because the residents of the four houses on Parker were able to use the chemin Mckibbon to get in and out.
Municipal workers fixed the road, and people were able to drive on it by Wednesday morning.
Road wash-outs have been a problem this year not only in Luskville, but in the MRC Pontiac.
Heavy rains this spring and summer have caused seven wash-outs on a single road, Jim’s Lake Rd, which runs from Mansfield all the way up to Jim Lake.
MRC Pontiac warden Jane Toller said these washouts are impacting residents as well as some businesses, including Bryson Lake Lodge, some of whose cottages are currently inaccessible due to the washouts.
She said the MRC is working toward finding solutions for these washouts, which are located far apart from each other and will require separate solutions.
For the moment, she says the alternative routes that exist are either costly or cumbersome.
“It’s possible for them to take some of these people by water, but it’s at a cost to them.”
“There are some other roads that can be used in the meantime, but they are very rough and
[ . . . ] not well-maintained. They are more suited for ATVs.”
Toller will be in talks with various government entities as she tries to secure funding for these projects.
“Sometimes things occur that are unexpected and are climate-related. We will do everything possible to try to remedy the situation.”

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Climb the cliffs at Venturing Hills

Farm to offer first outdoor rock climbing
camp in the Outaouais region

Sophie Kuijper Dickson, LJI Reporter

Luskville’s Venturing Hills Farm, known foremost as an equestrian facility but also for its annual classical music festival and its yoga retreats, will add a new activity to the roster of adventures it offers at the foot of the Gatineau Hills this summer – rock climbing.
It’s something Rae Becke, the general manager and head coach of Venturing Hills Farm, also the daughter of the farm’s owners, believes the farm is uniquely positioned to do.

Becke has been offering horseback riding camps on the farm since she was 14 years old.
She fell in love with the animals when her parents bought what was previously the Laframboise farm only a few years earlier. When she was looking for a summer job, she decided to start her own camp, to share this passion with others.

As a young adult, increasing involvement in international competitions drew Becke and her students away from the farm for periods throughout the summer, and so the farm scaled back the camps it offered.
But since the COVID-19 pandemic, Becke has returned to spending more time on farm, regrowing the summer camp programs and farm offerings so that it can be a place for everybody to enjoy horses and the great outdoors.

This year, that mission will include new rock climbing lessons on some faces of the Lusk escarpment that rises directly behind the Becke family’s property.
Becke said the sport, which she first tried in 2021, is in many ways similar to horse back riding.
“Both [sports] help people become more aware of their bodies. These little micromovements happening with your body can make all the difference in what you’re doing,” Becke explained, noting that in her experience, skills developed in one sport are transferable to the other.
“It’s about connecting with your body and with nature.”

When Becke returned from a stint of rock climbing in British Columbia, it hit her that her own farm had an incredible resource right in its backyard.
While several of the rock faces on the eastern side of the farm have been deemed off-limits by the National Capital Commission for conservation reasons, three climbs on the western side of the farm are open for use. “It’s a pretty rare thing to be able to do both of those things, horseback riding and climbing, in one spot. That is not your average farm.”

First of its kind

The rock climbing camp to be offered this summer at Venturing Hills Farm will be the first outdoor rock climbing camp in the entire Outaouais region, according to Becke.
To make it possible on the farm, she joined forces with her friend Alexandre Sauvé, a fully certified climbing instructor who last year started a climbing school in the Outaouais, L’ École d’escalade de l’Outaouais.
Sauvé said that while there is a thriving indoor rock climbing community in the area, as well as several camps hosted by the various climbing gyms in the region, there are no summer camps dedicated to getting beginners out climbing a real rock.

For Becke, being outside is critical to her mission.
“Climbing is about being outside, touching rocks, being in nature, and appreciating nature,” she emphasized. “The more you appreciate nature, the more you want to save nature and preserve the park that we have behind us.”

The farm is offering two separate weeks of rock climbing summer camp this year for kids five to 17 years old: July 29-Aug. 2, and Aug. 5-9.
Each week will offer kids a mix of horseback riding and rock climbing activities. Sauvé and another guide from his company will lead the way when it comes to the rock climbing portion of the camp, while Becke will take the lead on horse back riding instruction.
“Every morning we’ll start with the basics – how to tie a knot, and get them comfortable sitting in a harness, only six feet in the air,” Sauvé said.

Sauvé used to be a very shy teenager. He would stay indoors playing video games, and did not have many friends. When his parents signed him up for a canoe tripping camp, he was forced to spend a month in the woods with people he didn’t know.
“I can still see the impact today of the trajectory change that happened with that camp,” Sauvé saud. “Being away from technology, and nudging me strongly out of my comfort zone, had a great therapeutic impact.”
Sharing that experience with other kids is at the core of what Becke and Sauvé hope to do.
“I’m a strong believer in the benefits of voluntarily stepping out of your comfort zone. We never put any kind of pressure on people, and the backdoor is always open.”

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