QuEbec’s Industrial Releases Reduction Program: a progressive intervention strategy

摘要

In 1978, the Ministry began an ambitious project to depollute bodies of water across the province, which was called the Water Sanitation Program (Programme d’assainissement des eaux). Over the years, while municipal wastewater sanitation was under way, industrial releases and agricultural pollution control was gaining interest. Much like many other industrialized states and countries, QuEbec decided to take action and speed up the process of reducing industrial releases: the Industrial Releases Reduction Program was thus introduced in 1988. A strategy was put in place by the Ministry to consider all environmental receptors, aiming for a gradual reduction of industrial releases to these receptors. A legal tool called depollution attestation (attestation d’assainissement), which is an environmental permit, and a regulation regarding these environmental permits were implemented. Industrial sectors or categories are subject to the Industrial Releases Reduction Program (PRRI) when they are decreed by the Government; so far, pulp and paper mills, as well as metal and non-metal ore mining and primary metals transformation industries have been decreed. The issuance of several depollution attestations over the years has allowed environmental gains in QuEbec and a better understanding of the potential impacts of these industries’ releases to the environment.