A translation by Judith Turcotte
A few weeks ago, I took advantage of my daughter Josée’s visit with my grandchildren, Abigail and Noah, to travel back in time to Pierreville to visit La Ferme des Ormes, a farm which had previously belonged to my grandfather, Paul Comtois, and where my mother Odette was born. We then went to Odanak to visit the Abenaki Museum followed by a drive to Notre-Dame de Pierreville to buy smoked sturgeon. We returned by taking the road that runs alongside the Saint-François River. My daughter and my two grandchildren (who are no longer children) could not stop admiring the beautiful countryside.
When I admire such a body of water, I always ask myself the same questions. What about the quality of the water and do the residents respect this beauty of nature? When I came home, I hurried to consult the map of wastewater discharges prepared by the Foundation Rivières. *The list shows the municipalities’ annual ranking from the worst to the best. The spills refer to wastewater discharged and not treated.
I found Pierreville ranked 258th out of 700 municipalities. At this rank, the population-standardized spill intensity index is considered low; however, the municipality still carried out 31 spills during 2022, the year in which the data was collected. These spills pollute the Saint-François River which flows into Lake Saint-Pierre at the height of the Sorel Islands. In the same year, Saint-François-du-Lac and Sorel, Pierreville’s neighbouring municipalities, respectively carried out 49 and 1531 spills. It is important to remember that Lake Saint-Pierre has been granted a World Biosphere Reserve status by UNESCO. Hard to understand that these municipalities continue to discharge wastewater in this lake we are so proud of.
I invite you to consult the list of Foundation Rivières*to find out your municipality’s rank. The data is obtained from the Ministry of Environment, Climate Change Control, Wildlife and the Parks (MELCCP). The municipalities’ classification is determined by the intensity of the discharges per capita to place all municipalities (700) on the same footing. I live in the Longueuil urban agglomeration which finds itself in the 28th rank of the worst municipalities of Québec and first among the major municipalities. Montréal which is criticized for everything and nothing, ranks 8th among the major municipalities and 177th among all municipalities. But statistics are statistics; during the year Montréal made 1866 discharges in the St. Lawrence River. *https://fondationrivieres.org//nos-actions/carte-palmares-deversements-quebe