Wednesday, October 10, 2007
Rivière des Mille-Îles: pollution remains problematic
La Presse
“More than 350 million were invested in works drainage of water in immediate area catchment Rivière-des-Mille-Îles. In spite of a notable improvement rising from these investments, the quality of the water of this river remains still problematic.”
Such is the conclusion of a study of the ministry for the durable Development, Environment and Parks (MDDEP) carried out a few years ago. All indicates that, since 2005, “an important bacteriological contamination is always observed downstream from certain stations of purification (Boisbriand and Saint-Eustache in particular) and in a way almost generalized in times of rain. Generally, one in the document of the bearing MDDEP reads on the quality of the water of the Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, the contents of coliformes fecal in the river exceed the quality aimed after the cleansing, that is to say 200 UFC/100 ml.
Jean Lauzon, cofounder with Michel Aubut of the parc de la Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, confirmed with the Press. “The Rivière-des-Mille-Îles was already a dump with open sky. One had to close the beaches, which is always the case, because there is too many coliformes fecal.”
There were certain improvements these last years, but the authorities must still invest much money to make drinkable this river of 42 kilometers. “The bathe is prohibited there; only the water sports are allowed as fishing, except that I would hesitate to eat fish coming from this river”, declares Olivier Laforme, president of Association protection and environment of Boisbriand, which gathers more than one hundred of citizens and which brought a collective case against the municipality.
The Town of Boisbriand must invest 28 million, of which 11 million comes from Ottawa and Quebec, to modernize its factory of purification which goes back to 1964. But this project will not regulate of anything the problem of the river for the summer 2008. Mr. Lauzon concluded: “The demographic trends made so that the current installations do not answer the request any more. It would be necessary absolutely that the factories of purification of Boisbriand and Saint-Eustache do not reject any more their water directly with the river and that one adds retaining tanks with an aim of treating water before turning over it to the river”.
# posted by Francis Chartrand @ 5:48 PM 
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