Service 3R Valorisation’s sorting center in Montreal East is overcrowded. Despite numerous violations and large sums owed to Canadian and Quebec tax authorities, the company recently received a stay from the Environment Department, Le Devoir noted. The construction manager who signed this agreement with Quebec had problems with the law.
The 10,000 square meter 3R valorisation area is teeming with rubble. During our visit, some of the heaps were nine meters high, well above the five meter limit permitted in the permit certificate issued by the Ministry of the Environment.
The heaps of spoil are so large that, as a safety measure, a “crossed-out sidewalk” poster and orange cones have been placed along the low wall surrounding the site. The infrastructures for sorting partially buried residues are currently not accessible. However, this does not prevent trucks from transporting other residues there.
violations and fines
Since 2013, the Ministry of the Environment has been targeting the 3Rs. Six inspections found violations of Quebec’s environmental standards: failure to maintain heap heights and storage areas, debris falling onto neighboring properties, leachate draining from the site during snowmelt, and failure to maintain a register of materials used by the site entered and left the premises.
“The operator has refused the inspector to see the entry and exit registers of the sorting center,” according to an order from the Ministry of the Environment after an inspection carried out in 2017.
In the past 10 years, the department has issued five non-compliance notices and three unpaid fines totaling $17,500 to date.
Despite this defaulting behavior, the Ministry of the Environment recently reduced the company’s obligations. Under an arbitration agreement reached last October, Quebec is allowing 3R valorisation to form 30-foot-tall piles through next April. He gives it until April 2024 to meet the criteria of its approval certificate, which allows heaps of five meters.
Why such a grace period? The ministry states that this agreement was reached after 3R Valorisation challenged the government’s decisions. Environment Minister Benoit Charette is “following the situation closely,” says his spokeswoman Mélina Jalbert. “If the measures are not respected, the minister is determined to take the necessary remedial action,” she said.
3R Valorisation has big financial problems. In this context, will the company be able to meet its new obligations to the Ministry of the Environment by spring 2024? “Theoretically yes,” replies 3R Valorisation’s attorney Me Karl-Emmanuel Harrison. Since 2022, 3R Valorisation has had new points of sale for the disposal of fine fractions, according to the lawyer, who specifies that the company is currently waiting for a sieve to ensure the sorting of these materials. “The sorting table has been broken since the summer; it is currently inaccessible”, which would explain why “receptions are kept to a minimum”.
Me Harrison adds that “the commitments are clear”. “There is a deadline of 18 months to solve the two problems: the stack height problem and [une réduction] of the fine fraction stack. » Fine fractions are materials such as wood, glass, gypsum or asphalt shingles.
For Québec Common Front for Ecological Waste Management director Karel Ménard, given the company’s environmental history, the grace period being offered by the environment ministry is “almost complicity”: “They’re trying not to pay the fine to the ministry.” I’m pretty sure you’ll have a Denver clog by next year. Why do they give such deadlines? To be honest I have no idea, but for me this is unacceptable. »
trouble with the law
The President of 3R Valorisation, Simon Bergeron, who has been on sick leave since the summer, declined our interview request.
When we visited the sorting center, two men in a truck blocked the road to the service vehicle on the public road. When questioned about 3R Valorisation’s environmental shortcomings, the driver mailed the newspaper back to 3R Valorisation’s attorney, Me Harrison: “You should speak to him before you write anything, [parce qu’il] It’s going to be big, big changes. »
The man they met in Montreal East turns out to be Jean-François Boisvert. Mr. Boisvert, Sorting Center Operations Manager, currently holds the reins of the company. It was he who, as the legally authorized representative of 3R Valorisation, signed the arbitration agreement with the Ministry of the Environment.
Jean-François Boisvert had many run-ins with the law. He pleaded guilty to racketeering in 2009. Two years later, his firm’s office, Remblais JFA, was raided as part of the second phase of Project Vice, a major investigation conducted by Revenu Québec and the Sûreté du Québec (SQ). The move targeted companies allegedly benefiting from a “convenience billing network” in the construction and transportation industries, according to court documents. In 2017, the defunct company pleaded guilty to a reduced fee for failing to comply with the Excise Duty Act. Charges against Mr Boisvert personally were dropped a year later.
In 2015, the spotlight was on the decontamination company Gestion OFA Environnement, whose operations manager was Jean-François Boisvert. It is then the subject of an investigation by the SQ and the Ministry of Environment for illegal dumping of contaminated soil. As part of these investigations called Naphtalène, the authorities carried out searches “specifically on alleged offenses of possession of property obtained through crime, manufacture and use of forgeries, fraud, mischief and money laundering of proceeds of crime and involvement in the activities of a criminal organization “.
The investigation was dropped in 2018 due to “insufficient evidence”. [pouvant] determine the guilt of the suspects,” said the chief of law and law enforcement. Gestion OFA Environnement is now suing the Quebec government and an investigator from the Department of the Environment and investigators from the SQ. She is demanding, among other things, $4.25 million in defamation and punitive damages. “The searches were not based on reasonable grounds; [elles] led to the closure of the company,” says Me Harrison, also a lawyer at Gestion OFA Environnement. In his request, the company also accused the SQ of having leaked information to the media that would have damaged its image. Jean-François Boisvert denied it from commenting on these files.
In 2020, this time the Ministry of the Environment was interested in the 3R valorization. In an application for an injunction filed with the Supreme Court, he says a spinning mill was found to be illegally dumping residues from its Montreal East sorting center at a site in Saint-Gabriel-de-Brandon in Lanaudière, La Presse reported at the time . “This location had to meet conditions to receive materials and didn’t meet them. From the moment the Ministry provided us with documents, [3R Valorisation] stopped sending stuff there,” Harrison says.
3R valorization is at a crossroads today. It does not intend to continue its activities in the current form. Me Karl-Emmanuel Harrison confirms that 3R Valorisation has taken steps to sell its assets. “Some people have made offers to buy the land,” he says.
Regardless of the scenarios considered, the site will be cleaned up, he assures. “Either the property is sold and the buyer cleans up. Either the company cleans and sells, or [3R Valorisation] cleans up and continues its activities. » Is bankruptcy planned? “This is not the scenario envisaged. »