Kristen Villebrun and Wendy Bush hoped they wouldn't have to pray for Chedoke Creek, but four years after they first raised alarm about the water's condition, they were part of an Indigenous full moon ceremony to do just that. About 50 people showed up near Princess Point on the dark and frigid Monday evening for the monthly ceremony, which was particularly special as it focused on Chedoke Creek. The body of water that runs into Cootes Paradise had about 24 billion litres of sewage and storm water runoff leak into it due to a gate being left open.
Half the population of St-Jean-sur-Richelieu, 30 kilometres southeast of Montreal, have been without drinking water since a major water main break at the beginning of the week. The city declared a local state of emergency on Wednesday. The water cutoff affected more than 26,000 residential, commercial and industrial addresses in the St-Luc and L’Acadie sectors as of Wednesday afternoon, as well as part of the St-Jean sector, all on the western side of the Richelieu River.
At the bottom of a slope in a dense Montreal neighbourhood, there's a new park with benches, an open field and a playground — along with two small pedestrian bridges. When there's heavy rain, water rushes down the streets and sidewalks into the green space, forming a small lake beneath the overpasses, in a carved-out area filled with grasses, shrubs and rocks. In the days that follow, the water slowly seeps into the soil and stormwater system. It's all been engineered to prevent flash flooding in nearby streets and homes, while nourishing the vegetation in the park.
The city of Montreal is planning to build more urban "sponge" infrastructure to protect against future flood waters brought on by climate change. The announcement Tuesday came as Montreal once again found itself drying out after heavy rainfall pummelled the city in the early morning. The city plans to build 30 sponge parks and 400 more sponge sidewalks by 2025 — green spaces that naturally absorb excess rainfall instead of draining the water directly into neighbourhood sewers.
A light rain has fallen and the pavement around Dickie Moore Park on Beaumont Avenue in Montreal is still wet Friday morning, but three small groups of toddlers wearing bright orange bibs have ambled down the road into the park and onto its wooden play structures. "When it rains, we usually come here with the kids because the wood chips absorb the water," says Valbona Shkambi, a daycare educator.
Issues with low water pressure and an "outdated' water supply in the hemodialysis unit at the Chisasibi hospital have forced the relocation of several Cree patients from northern Quebec to Montreal for much of summer. Displaced since mid-July, some of those affected say they are frustrated by delays and say the hemodialysis facility in Chisasibi has long been too small, inadequate and has had an issue with mould.
As the city of Montreal looks for solutions for its aging, leaky water infrastructure, Mayor Valérie Plante has made it clear that residential water meters are not an option. In theory, meters could be used to charge each household for consumption, thus encouraging people to use less and reduce the strain on a system that is essentially hemorrhaging drinking water.
Aging infrastructure, climate change and population growth are putting significant pressure on Montreal’s water resources. Faced with the magnitude of the issues and planned investments, the city is launching a public consultation on the future of water in its territory. Montreal is wasting too much drinking water, it is dumping too many pollutants into the St. Lawrence River, its aging infrastructure is unable to swallow the ever-increasing quantity of water spilled during torrential rains, and the city does not have enough money to update and adapt its infrastructure related to water management.
Jean-François Boyer was awakened shortly after 4:30 a.m. Friday morning by someone pounding on his door urging him to look outside his third-storey apartment in Montreal's Saint-Michel neighbourhood. "I looked down from the balcony and saw that my car had water halfway up its doors," said Boyer. "I didn't know what to do." A major water main broke Friday morning, flooding streets in the neighbourhood and filling several basements and vehicles.
"For the first time coming to the island since I was a little child, I saw corn growing," Diabo, council chief responsible for the environment portfolio at the Mohawk Council of Kahnawà:ke, said at a news conference Wednesday announcing the completion of the nearly decade-long project to restore water flow in the bay and naturalize its surroundings.
A park in Lachine, Que., will become soon help Montreal avoid future flooding. The city is redesigning Brewster Park, near Lac Saint-Louis, using concepts from the realm of phytotechnology — the application of plants to solve engineering and science problems — to make it into a "sponge park" that will absorb water during heavy rainfall events.
The city says it wants to create more green spaces that can act as sponges, so water gets absorbed into the ground rather than drained into sewers during rain deluges. Firefighters were deployed to help pump water out of buildings. Sabourin said the city typically gets 90 millimetres of rain in July — meaning Montreal received almost as much rain it usually sees in July in the span of two hours. The city's sewers simply don't have the capacity to hold that much water, he said, explaining the floods. The area south of the downtown core was most affected.
A precautionary boil-water advisory is in effect for a portion of Saint-Lazare, an off-island suburb west of Montreal. The advisory was issued Tuesday. The municipality says an unplanned outage occurred due to an aqueduct failure during work on a sewer project. The entire suburb is not affected. The advisory is for the area east of Montée Saint-Robert as a precautionary measure only, for a minimum period of three consecutive days. This is the time required for the water to be analyzed by a certified laboratory and for the results to be communicated to the municipality.
The MP brandished a container of gray and opaque water in front of the journalists, demanding a Parliamentary commission concerning the alleged toxic discharges into a watercourse adjacent to the G&R Recycling site at the northwest end of Kanesatake. “If that’s water that we find on the ground in Kanesatake because of an illegal dump that is contaminated, no one wants to live in an environment like that,” the MP said.
A group that claims to speak on behalf of citizens of Kanesatake is calling for an independent commission of inquiry with the participation of the United Nations on the crisis in the Mohawk community of Kanesatake. NDP MP Alexandre Boulerice participated in a demonstration that brought together about 25 people in front of the office of the Crown-Indigenous Relations Minister Marc Miller Tuesday in Montreal. The MP brandished a container of gray and opaque water in front of the journalists, demanding a parliamentary commission concerning the alleged toxic discharges into a watercourse adjacent to the G&R Recycling site at the northwest end of Kanesatake.
With both feet sinking into damp dirt, urban planner Pascale Rouillé surveys a narrow strip of land that will soon be used to not only retain runoff, but also be bursting with greenery that the community can enjoy. Tucked in next to a warehouse known as Bâtiment 7 in the Montreal neighbourhood of Pointe-Saint-Charles, near the intersection of Le Ber and Sainte-Madeleine streets, the terrain will become what has been dubbed a "blue-green alley."
CIPP Corp. (A Vortex Company), one of North America's leading Cured-In-Place Pipe installation networks, and its Canadian licensee, Foraction, announced today they are co-hosting an education and awareness water summit focused on the need for a coordinated effort to tackle the issue of aging water services throughout the Americas. Known as an innovator in the industry, CIPP Corp. developed CIPP H20, an NSF-certified water relining technology, as a trenchless alternative to traditional water main replacement. "We've tried to stay ahead of the curve, because we knew the day would come when our drinking water infrastructure needed attention. With the passing of the infrastructure bill, the funding is there to finally tackle the issue," said Mike Vellano, CEO of the Vortex Companies. "CIPP H2O is a proven solution, and Foraction has had great success with it in Montreal, a city that has been extremely proactive in rehabilitating its old water mains and lead services."
Montreal is on alert and ready to help people prepare for flooding as water levels upriver begin to rise. The city activated its alert mode as part of its special flood response plan on Sunday and city workers erected temporary dikes along the shoreline in some areas where the river was already swelling above its banks. Neighbourhoods bordering Rivière-des-Prairies, Lake of Two Mountains and Lac St-Louis are particularly at risk of spring flooding, with water levels expected to increase over the next two days.
The city of Montreal is looking to significantly reduce its own greenhouse gas emissions while vastly improving the St. Lawrence River's water quality by overhauling its wastewater treatment plant. As part of Montreal's 2023 budget (presented in November) the city earmarked $682 million over 10 years to replace the incinerators at the Jean-R.-Marcotte plant in Rivière-des-Prairies–Pointe-aux-Trembles.
A public water blessing ceremony was held Thursday on the shores of the St. Lawrence River at the Clock Tower in the Old Port of Montreal. The ceremony was conducted by Ukrainian Bishop Bryan J. Bayda, eparch of the Eparchy of Toronto and Eastern Canada, to show solidarity with the people of Ukraine. The water blessing is an important part of Eastern Christian traditions. It centres around the Feast of Theophany — or the baptism of Jesus in the Jordan River — which is celebrated every year on Jan. 6.
