To no one's surprise, the project to build a future composting platform in the Municipality of Saint-Télesphore attracted a great deal of attention at the Saint-Zotique municipal council meeting held on Tuesday, November 21. 

The tour by the citizens' group behind the Facebook page Protection de l'esker de Saint-Télesphore / Rivière-Beaudette, which is campaigning against the site selected by the MRC de Vaudreuil-Soulanges for the future composting platform, continued at the regular November meeting of the Saint-Zotique council. 

An ambivalent council?

During the meeting, the mayor declared that, in view of all the citizen mobilization generated by the project, he wouldn't be surprised if it never came to fruition. 

Right at the start of the question period at the end of the meeting, a citizen of Saint-Télesphore asked Mayor Yvon Chiasson to adopt a resolution asking the MRC to change the location of the project. 

"We won't be adopting such a resolution this evening.  For my part, my thoughts on the subject are based on two factors. First, does the mayor of Saint-Télesphore agree with the project's location on his territory? He is. Secondly, is it 100% certain that there is no risk of drinking water contamination? I want to be sure of this personally before I give my approval to the project. My daughter lives in Rivière-Beaudette, one of the municipalities that draws its drinking water from the esker located on the proposed project site, so this is a matter close to my personal heart. I want to be sure that the platform won't pose any risk of contamination to the water table," he replied. 

He reassured the members of the citizens' group present in the room by demonstrating great transparency. "We won't be making any decisions until we have access to the requested environmental studies due in 2024, and that's if we get to that stage. From what I perceive from the inside, I don't know if the MRC will go ahead with the project. I wouldn't be surprised if it never sees the light of day," he confided. 

For his part, Councillor Jean-Pierre Daoust was adamant that the project would never have his support, at least in its current form. "I'm an avid hunter, fisherman and nature lover. To build the platform, they want to cut down several trees on the site. For this reason, I would never vote for this project," he mentioned, before pledging later in the evening to present the resolution drafted by the citizens' group to ask the MRC to change the site for the future composting platform. 

Councillor Yannick Guay also disagreed with the current project. District 3 representative Patrick L'Écuyer admitted he was not convinced by the project. "We had a presentation of the project by the MRC, and I thought they'd be displaying fireworks to sell it to us, but that wasn't the case. They weren't able to convince me, and I don't see how, with what was presented to us, they can go ahead with the platform," he asserted. 

Major support 

"We're very pleased with the openness shown by the mayor and municipal councillors to our fears and concerns about the arrival of a future composting facility near our home. One of the councillors even undertook to present the resolution demanding a change of site for the project at a future meeting and to ask for a vote on it, before the December 16 deadline for the purchase of the land by the MRC", sums up Mélanie Pilon, one of the spokespersons for the group of committed citizens who collected almost 1,000 signatures, 60% of them from Saint-Télesphore residents, on a petition denouncing the choice of site. 

She is delighted with the support and willingness to listen shown by elected officials. "We're confident that the council will adopt the resolution proposed by our group. We very much appreciated the mayor's transparency in this matter. He told us that our presence at council meetings made elected officials think about the project," she concluded. 

Ms. Pilon invites anyone interested in the subject to visit the Facebook page for the Protection of the Esker Saint-Télesphore / Rivière-Beaudette at https://www.facebook.com/protection.esker.