Company seeking to dump hazardous waste in Blainville, Que., is compliant: Environment Ministry
Despite anomalies found, ministry says they are 'not worrisome'
Quebec's Environment Ministry says that the landfill site of American company Stablex in a suburb north of Montreal is compliant with current environmental regulations.
Stablex made headlines last year when the city of Blainville ended an agreement that would have allowed the company to expand the landfill and bury an additional eight million cubic metres of hazardous materials in the municipality until 2065.
The company has been treating and burying hazardous materials such as batteries and laboratory waste in Blainville for the past 40 years.
Half of the waste received by Stablex comes from Ontario and the northeastern U.S.
The ministry said in a news release published Friday that after surface water and groundwater were sampled and a compliance inspection at the landfill site was conducted in April, it found that no environmental regulations or ministerial authorizations have been breached.
Some anomalies were detected in the groundwater, but the ministry emphasized that the "results overall are satisfactory from an environmental point of view."
"The anomalies are considered isolated and not worrisome," the ministry said, adding that "rigorous and exhaustive monitoring of this data will be carried out over the next three years."
In a September 2023 report, Quebec's environmental watchdog, the Bureau d'audiences publiques sur l'environnement (BAPE), described the expansion project as "premature" and recommended that the government not authorize it.
With files from Radio-Canada