Report - Agence canadienne d'évaluation environnementale

Long-term cumulative impacts
Impacts on the inhabited area and human activities
In the absence of air quality data for the city of Lévis, the Panel is not in a position to
assess the applicability of baseline thresholds established from the Des Sables
station for the area affected by development of the LNG terminal. Also, municipal
authorities have indicated that they want to develop agri-food “Cold-processing
industries” near the proposed terminal. The arrival of these industries, along with the
possible establishment of enterprises drawn by the availability of natural gas, could
lead to added emissions of air pollutants.
The LNG terminal would be located in the Windsor-Quebec corridor, which is already
heavily affected by the long-distance movement of air pollution from major industrial
centres on the Great Lakes and in Quebec. According to the Agences de la santé et
des services sociaux de la Chaudière-Appalaches and de la Capitale-Nationale,
11 industries emit significant quantities of pollutants within Lévis territory. Among
these, the Ultramar refinery is the major local source of atmospheric emissions.
Like some other semi-urban areas in the Windsor-Quebec corridor, which are affected
by long-distance pollution although they have no heavy industry, the populations of
these areas are nevertheless exposed to various forms of pollution from agricultural,
urban sources, as well as from local and interregional transportation, all of which
contribute to degradation of local air quality.
In the view of the Agences de la santé et des services sociaux de la Chaudière-
Appalaches and de la Capitale-Nationale, the absence of monitoring stations in the
Lévis area hinders obtaining “a realistic portrait” of baseline thresholds for the different
air contaminants. Where Health Canada is concerned, the default reference threshold
set at 20 µg/m³ (PM2.5) for fine particulates “is plausible, but remains a theoretical
assessment that could only be validated through direct sampling” (DQ38.1, p. 1).
The project’s impact statement offers a certain number of hypotheses about inputs for
the atmospheric dispersion models used. The MDDEP is of the opinion that the
predicted concentrations are acceptable to the extent that the parameters of the
modelling are representative of the situation predicted. It is worth noting that it is not
the ministry’s responsibility to validate the emission rates used in the modelling of the
effects of air pollution expected from the project.
For these reasons, the Panel feels that a margin of error exists for the predicted
concentration of pollutants, the magnitude of which is difficult to quantify without an
adequate knowledge of the real operating conditions.
Rabaska Project – Implementation of an LNG Terminal and Related Infrastructure 193