300 pools of kerosene in their court

Photo courtesy CIAM
A consortium of airlines would like to store tanks of kerosene in the sector Tétreaultville Montreal-East, near the avenue George-V, 800 metres from the houses. This location is represented on the map in the mortise by a red point, near the river Saint-Laurent.

Anne Caroline Desplanques

Saturday, 16 December, 2017 01:00

UPDATE
Saturday, 16 December, 2017 01:00

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Of the citizens of Montreal to denounce a proposed terminal for oil which provides for the installation of gigantic fuel tanks to only 800 meters of the houses.

“This is a non-sense to install it there, it is far too close to housing, imagine if there was an accident “, growls Vincent Marchione, the aggregation citizen Committee of vigilance for the environment is of Montreal.

This new terminal would allow the term to store the equivalent of 300 olympic-sized swimming pools full of fuel, near the avenue George V and the river St. Lawrence, in the district of Tétreaultville.

The proponent, a consortium of airlines called the international Corporation for bunkering of Montreal (CIAM), wishes to procure kerosene from the airports of Montreal, Toronto and Ottawa.

The Bureau d’audiences publiques sur l’environnement (BAPE) is currently holding a consultation period on the project and will hold a public information session in Montreal-Is the 19 December.

Accumulation of risk

“There is no risk to nearby homes,” says Matthew McKernan, environmental director at the CIAM.

The grouping of citizens, however, fears a domino effect in the event of an accident, knowing that there is an accumulation of heavy industries at high risk in the sector. Wanting to be reassuring, Mr. McKernan stated that the consequences of an incident would be contained within the field of CIAM.

But Mr. Marchione has serious doubts. “The kerosene does not explode, but it burns, and we have seen several tanks that have had leakage. All of this might sink in the river “, he says, worried for the drinking water supply of the metropolitan region.

Old pipeline

CIAM provides that the fuel be delivered by tankers from Quebec. It would then be distributed, including the use of the pipeline Trans-Northern, which crosses many rivers, including the Ottawa river, upstream of water intakes in the quebec metropolis.

However, the conduct of Trans-North, which dates from 1952, ” misfired major in terms of security “, says Patrick Bonin of Greenpeace. Since 2008, the company is responsible for 6 of the 13 incidents related to the operation of pipelines in Quebec.

The problem is such that two commissioners of the national energy Board have called for its temporary closure in 2016, as the Trans-North failed to make several work to ensure the security of the infrastructure.

The bulk of the distribution will be effected, however, by train. CIAM does, in fact, deliver three-quarters of the fuel it will store in Montreal-Is by rail up to the Pearson international airport in Toronto, ” says Mr McKernan.

“These trains will pass through densely populated districts, it is not in the shelter of a train wreck” fears Mr. Marchione.

The project CIAM in brief

• 8 tanks with a capacity of 160 million litres
• 1387 to 1858 million litres of kerosene there would transit each year
• Fuel delivered by tankers and then shipped by barge, pipeline, train and truck
• 6 railways which can carry 52 cars related to the route of the CN
• 5 km of pipeline connected to one of the Trans-North, which already serves airports