Montreal

Sainte-Marthe planned to build a school on a wetland. Then the town flooded

The municipality northwest of Montreal will reconsider plans for growth in the zone that flooded when the swollen Lake of Two Mountains breached a dike on April 27.

Town will reconsider plans for growth in zone that flooded when dike was breached in late April

Sainte-Marthe-sur-le-Lac is reconsidering plans to build a school in this area of woods and wetlands, much of it now under water. (Ivanoh Demers/Radio-Canada)

Sainte-Marthe-sur-le-Lac, recently devastated by a breached dike, is being forced to rapidly re-evaluate its plans for growth as the province reviews policies around development in flood zones.

Radio-Canada has learned that the suburb northwest of Montreal was planning to build a new school on wetlands within the area that flooded when the Lake of Two Mountains breached the dike on April 27.

"We're certainly going to reconsider it," said Sainte-Marthe Mayor Sonia Paulus. "It's clear that elected officials and the school board will sit down to discuss the situation. We'll surely have to reconsider the location.

On Thursday, Quebec Public Security Minister Geneviève Guilbault suggested any projects that could be affected by future flooding would need to be reviewed.

"Before announcing new construction in wetlands or flood zones, we need to take the time the situation requires," Guilbault said. "We have to take the reality of what happened into account. And we absolutely need to review flood zone management before approving all new construction."

Wetlands — ponds, peat bogs and swamps — act like sponges, absorbing water and limiting the impact of floods. There are few that have been left untouched in Sainte-Marthe, where this spring's historic floods caused enormous damage.

Flooded streets are seen from an aerial view in St-Marthe-sur-le-Lac, Que.
Flooded streets are seen in St-Marthe-sur-le-Lac, Que. on April 30, 2019. (Paul Chiasson/Canadian Press)

The town exists because of a dike, first built in 1980, that holds back the waters of the Lake of Two Mountains. Sainte-Marthe's streets are effectively laid out on the actual lake bed.

The dike was inspected after the 2017 floods, and plans were in place to repair it this fall.

Paulus had previously defended the plans for a new school, slated to be built on one and a half hectares of land in a wooded area now under water.

Wetland maps from Quebec's Environment Ministry indicate that building the school in that location would require building on part of a vast swamp.

'Impossible to avoid'

A new library inaugurated by Sainte-Marthe just last year was built directly on the wetland. Its parking lot was flooded out this spring.

For that project, the Environment Ministry approved the destruction of a peat bog about the size of a quarter-acre residential lot, as well as a portion of mature deciduous woodland. 

In a 2017 assessment, the ministry said it was "impossible to avoid the wetland because it is the only land owned by the City and zoned for community use with the required area for the planned facilities."

The parking lot at Sainte-Marthe-sur-le-Lac's new library, built on a wetland, flooded in late April. (Thomas Gerbet/Radio-Canada)

The ministry's approval came with a few conditions.

A conservation area of ​​8,300 square metres, or nearly a hectare, was to be established in the remaining woodland, and ownership of that protected land had to be transferred from the municipality to a third party to prevent its future destruction.

The municipality did just that: Radio-Canada found documents showing Sainte-Marthe-sur-le-Lac gave up the land to a committee — albeit one with an address at Sainte-Marthe-sur-le-Lac's city hall and with the municipality's mayor as its head.

"I can tell you that I will not touch it," Paulus said, when asked if the third-party committee could really be independent with the town's mayor chairing it. "It's a question of ethics."

As population grows, green space shrinks

With low taxes, waterfront views and its proximity to the city, Sainte-Marthe has grown rapidly, its population more than doubling from 8,300 in 1995 to 18,000 in 2016. That growth has had consequences.

According to data from the Ministry of the Environment, Sainte-Marthe's forest cover fell from 16 per cent in 1999 to 8 per cent in 2009 — well below the critical threshold of 30 per cent identified in Environment Canada guidelines for maintaining biodiversity.

Children from the south of Sainte-Marthe currently attend school in the neighbouring municipality of Deux-Montagnes.

Debris lines a street as clean up continues in parts of Ste.Marthe-sur-la-Lac, Que., Monday, May 6, 2019. A dike broke last week causing widespread flooding and forcing thousands of people to evacuate. (Ryan Remiorz/Canadian Press)

Radio-Canada has also learned that a real estate developer, supported by the municipality, wants to remove another woodlot and a wetland bordering the flooded area.

On March 28, 2019, the developer Groupe L'Héritage (GBD), owner of the land, applied to the Environment Ministry for a permit to fill a wetland in the woods located at the northeast corner of Oka Road and des Promenades Boulevard.

The request has not yet been approved, and the ministry has not replied to Radio-Canada's queries.

The project is a proposed condominium development with about 20 buildings. Sainte-Marthe has exchanged lots with the developer to allow for the construction of an aquatic centre.

The pool was promised by the end of 2019 and was originally planned for the flood zone, in the wetland area now proposed for a school.

Alain Tremblay, GBD's vice-president of finance and operations, said the project "is not yet defined."

With files from Radio-Canada's Thomas Gerbet