Pointe-Claire residents question cleanup of toxic property
Official says contamination limited to Pointe-Claire industrial property
How thoroughly a contaminated property and surrounding lots in Pointe-Claire will be decontaminated has been the subject of repeated questions, sometimes heated in tone, at city council meetings over the past months.
Toxicologist Monique Beausoleil, who works for the regional health and social services centre (CIUSSS), said people can go online to access a June 2015 report done by TechnoRem detailing the levels of contamination.
The Quebec Environment Ministry commissioned TechnoRem — experts in “groundwater management, characterization and restoration of contaminated sites” — to do a characterization of the soil on the site on Hymus Blvd.
But Quebec Green Party leader Alex Tyrrell wants testing to be expanded to neighbouring residential properties. He told the Montreal Gazette a letter sent to Pointe-Claire this spring by the CIUSSS saying the level of contamination on the property did not pose a health risk to people nearby was not enough.
“Nothing has been done to prove that the residential properties are free of contamination,” Tyrrell said. “Is it safe for residents to eat the vegetables they grow in their backyard gardens?”
Rean Sague has a 10-month-old girl and lives two houses up from the contaminated site. The baby is not allowed to play in the backyard for longer than five minutes because Sague isn’t convinced it is safe.
“I want the contaminated soil (on the Reliance site) removed as quickly as possible and the air quality tested,” Sague said. “And I want tests done on the residential properties. I have no confidence in how this is being handled.”
Beausoleil said the letter was sent to the city of Pointe-Claire after the CIUSSS both conferred with the ministry and studied the test results.
“We wanted the letter to assure people,” she said. “The report did not indicate that the contamination had migrated towards residential properties. And the groundwater does not flow in the direction of the residential properties.”
In 2013, city workers doing road repairs discovered toxins were leaking from the former Reliance Power Equipment building. PCBs had been stored illegally on the property for at least 15 years. The owner of the building had passed away and repeated attempts to get his company to come up with a plan to clean up the site failed, so in September 2013 the ministry took over the site.
The property was sold to a holding company in June 2015. One year later, the company responded to the Environment Ministry’s order to come up with a plan to decontaminate the site and to test adjacent industrial sites and decontaminate, if necessary. In an email, a spokesman from the ministry said five adjacent lots will be tested, none of them residential.
To view the report, go to www.mddelcc.gouv.qc.ca/sol/terrains/caracterisation-pointeclaire.pdf.