Flushgate a success but lacked 'social acceptability:' Denis Coderre

The sewage dump that spewedalmost five billion litres of untreated wastewater into the St. Lawrence River over four days last November was a success, causing no long-term environmental damage and taking less timethan expected, Montreal officials have concluded.

However, the project suffered from a lack of "social acceptability" caused by ineffective communication with the public, their report finds.

"There was lack of communication, and it's important to recognize it," Mayor Denis Coderre told reporters Wednesday.

"But we worked with science, with facts, with experts ... and the facts say thatthere was almost no impact," he added.

Some of the conclusions of the report, available (in French) on the city's website[PDF]:

• The water quality of the St. Lawrence River returnedto normal four to 10 days after the dump ended.
• The quality deteriorated in a 250-metre-wide corridor of the river up to 10 kilometres downstream fromMontreal.
• Uptake points for drinking water were not affected.
• There was nochange in the chemical levels of river sediments and plants.
• No genotoxicity (the presence oftoxinsthat can mutate living DNA) was detected.
• The city got no official complaints from residents.

City scientists also exposed rainbow trout to different concentration of sewage over four days, and none of them died.

The report suggested that city departments increase their sensitivity to the "social acceptability" of projects to prevent the same level of public outrage that the dump incited.

It also said that better communication plans are needed to improve understanding of technical issues among the general public.

Report unrealistic, environment group says

The report was dismissed as "jovial" and misleadingby Fondation Rivires, a non-profit advocacy groupfor the protection of waterways.

Itsaidthe cityoverlookedthe non-organicsolid waste that was also dumped out.

While the city saidthat only three cubic metres of solid waste was fished out of the river about the volume of a backyard jacuzzithe foundation challenged that figure.

"[More waste] wascarried by the current, and a good part will settle at the bottom of Lake St. Pierre, where the current is slower," saidCatherine Huard, executive director of Fondations Rivires.

Huard saidQuebec's environmentministry should have doneits own independent report, and the the city should publish all the information from the project for public scrutiny.

The sewage dump was necessary in order to empty and repair a 30-kilometre-long sewage interceptor.

The dump, dubbed Flushgate, made international news for its immense scale: City officials hadexpected to dump 8 billion litres of raw effluent into the river, the equivalent of 3,200 Olympic-sized pools.