{"id":133725,"date":"2025-09-10T12:34:08","date_gmt":"2025-09-10T12:34:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/133725\/"},"modified":"2025-09-10T12:34:08","modified_gmt":"2025-09-10T12:34:08","slug":"quebec-set-to-rollout-project-to-limit-major-water-consumption-and-preserve-rivers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/133725\/","title":{"rendered":"Quebec set to rollout project to limit major water consumption and preserve rivers"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Quebec government is hoping a new pilot project, starting this fall, will help reduce major\u00a0water use\u00a0when river water levels\u00a0dip too low\u00a0during periods of drought.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The project will run in the Centre-du-Qu\u00e9bec region, on a voluntary basis, for the next three years, says Quebec’s Environment\u00a0Ministry.<\/p>\n

Its objective is to reduce\u00a0withdrawals from the river to\u00a0preserve the water for essential use\u00a0and ecosystems, in areas where the demand for it is high,\u00a0says\u00a0ministry spokesperson Louis Potvin,\u00a0in an emailed statement.<\/p>\n

During a summer of relentless heat, the St. Lawrence River reached its lowest water level in four years, dipping\u00a060 centimetres below average in August<\/a>. The bodies of water that feed it also suffered a similar fate.<\/p>\n

Potvin says the sources of pressure on Quebec’s rivers and lakes vary, depending on the time of the year. He says it’s why the pilot project will target every sector of activity.<\/p>\n

According to data collected by the Ministry of Environment, major consumers in the region include industries, municipalities, aqua-culture facilities and cranberry farms. Consumers,\u00a0using 50,000 litres of water or more per day, even if it is just for one day,\u00a0are among those that have to disclose their water consumption amounts.<\/p>\n

The Centre-du-Qu\u00e9bec region is home to most of Canada’s cranberry production which has been steadily growing over the last decade, according to the Quebec Cranberry Growers Association, also known as\u00a0APCQ.<\/p>\n

\"WorkersWorkers pull floating cranberries toward a syphon in Saint-Louis-de-Blandford, Que., in 2011. Cranberry producers use water, rainwater for the most part,\u00a0to flood fields throughout the year in order to protect the plants, keep insects at bay and\u00a0collect the berries. (Jacques Boissinot\/The Canadian Press)<\/p>\n

“We don’t want our fellow citizens to lack water,” said the APCQ’s president, Vincent Godin.<\/p>\n

But the Ministry of Environment is concerned about what the industry’s growth might potentially mean for the region’s water supply after it conducted an internal investigation on the matter, as reported by Radio-Canada.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Cranberry producers use water, rainwater for the most part,\u00a0to flood fields throughout the year in order to protect the plants during the winter, keep insects at bay during the spring and\u00a0collect the berries which float to the surface in the fall.<\/p>\n

However, not all cranberry farms declare their water consumption volumes and the ministry’s investigation showed the data\u00a0provided\u00a0was\u00a0at times unreliable.<\/p>\n

The ministry’s pilot project will be lead in collaboration with the APCQ, according to Quebec’s environment minister and agriculture minister, who issued\u00a0a joint statement to Radio-Canada.\u00a0<\/p>\n

As part of the project, major water users in the same river basin will be notified if the water level reaches a certain threshold and would have to reduce their consumption until it returns to normal.<\/p>\n

The mayor of Nicolet, Que.,\u00a0Genevi\u00e8ve Dubois,\u00a0said she’s happy about the project and how the Nicolet River, which borders the municipality, will be prioritized.\u00a0Its recorded water flow has been well under the historical median since July, according to data from the Environment Ministry.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“We often criticize the government for only reacting when the catastrophe is already here, so we applaud the government’s proactive approach to thinking about this issue in advance,” she said.<\/p>\n

But Andr\u00e9 B\u00e9langer, the\u00a0executive director of the Fondation Rivi\u00e8res, a group that advocates for the protection and revitalization of rivers, says the project’s success hinges on compliance from the industrial sector.<\/p>\n

“For industries, there are significant costs to stop consuming water,” said B\u00e9langer.<\/p>\n

“We hope that the pilot project will be large enough to allow us to quickly implement active management that is more significant across the territory.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Quebec government is hoping a new pilot project, starting this fall, will help reduce major\u00a0water use\u00a0when river…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":133726,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[49,48,295,66],"class_list":["post-133725","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-environment","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133725","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=133725"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133725\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/133726"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=133725"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=133725"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=133725"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}