The injunction request is aimed primarily at residents, not the companies that transport the soil to the Mohawk territory.
The Quebec government is going to court to fight the dumping of contaminated soil along a shoreline in the Mohawk community of Kanesatake, west of Montreal.
After an operation last month to collect soil samples and inspect several sites along the shores of Lake of Two Mountains, the Environment Ministry is seeking an injunction in Quebec Superior Court to stop the dumping of soil and waste material, tree-cutting and the construction of new buildings on 17 properties.
The decision follows months of media coverage and public pressure from community members, who say illegal dumping has been a problem in Kanesatake for years. The government says it began looking into the issue after receiving complaints from residents last fall.
The injunction request names 17 defendants, mostly Kanesatake residents, and two companies that did work on the properties, but does not include other construction companies whose trucks were frequently seen transporting soil to the Mohawk territory.
The document alleges that the defendants committed “numerous violations” of Quebec environmental regulations on their land, including cutting down trees, filling in land, dumping contaminated soil and erecting buildings on the lakeshore. It says some of the soil samples taken last month were contaminated with hydrocarbons.
“These illegal activities … pose a particular risk to living organisms, to the health of the nearby aquatic ecosystem and constitute a serious threat to the quality of the environment,” the government says.
The ministry says it sent letters in June to trucking companies in the Montreal area advising them there were “no authorized sites” for the disposal of contaminated soil in Kanesatake, but the problem persisted.
Inspections last month found the defendants were using the soil to fill in along the waterfront and, in some cases, then erecting new buildings on the land, the government alleges. An affidavit from a government investigator cites two cannabis dispensaries that were built along the filled-in shoreline.
Residents targeted, not businesses
The court document says soil erosion into the lake could reduce oxygen levels in the water and harm fish and invertebrate populations. The government says there is an urgent need to stop the dumping of soil because of the “large number of trucks accessing the site every day.”
But the injunction request is aimed primarily at residents, not the companies that transport the soil to Mohawk territory. Media reported earlier this year about a steady stream of trucks delivering loads of soil to Kanesatake from construction sites in the Montreal area, including several from Nexus Construction and Grands Travaux de Montréal. The companies are not named in the court filing.
Only two companies, Les Entreprises Translogik and Excavation Denis Dagenais, are named as defendants. The government alleges they were involved in the shoreline fill. Hugo Dagenais, who runs Excavation Denis Dagenais, declined to be interviewed by phone.
In a sworn statement, a ministry official said it took a long time to schedule the inspections, partly because of safety concerns and partly because the Mohawk Council of Kanesatake is divided into “two factions,” which slowed communication.
Illegal dumping of waste in Kanesatake has been a long-standing concern. The Quebec government granted a permit in 2015 to brothers Gary and Robert Gabriel to operate an industrial recycling centre on the territory. But the province revoked the permit and ordered the site closed in 2020 after inspections found the volume of waste was well above the permitted limit and that black water and contaminated water were leaking into the environment.
Robert Gabriel is one of the accused named in the new court filing. He is listed as the owner of High Times, a cannabis store built on the embankment.
Government lawyers were in court in St-Jérôme on Wednesday, but the judge adjourned the hearing until Oct. 7 to give the defendants time to find lawyers.