L’ASCENSION, QUE. - Construction is finally underway at the site of a landslide that washed away a critical road and cut out a massive hole in front of the fire station in L’Ascension, Que. It took 86 days to get the work started. Mayor Jacques Allard says his town had to dig through a pile of red tape to obtain permits and funding to begin rebuilding. And until the road is passable again, roughly 300 people, nearly a third of the town’s residents, are cut off from the centre of the town in Quebec’s Laurentians region. “We have one gas station, a grocery store, a church, and a post office in the village,” says Allard. “Thirty per cent of my residents were on the other side of the hole. Morale was not good. It changed our community.” Now, the town wants to help change the system and speed up emergency repairs in case of natural disasters for other municipalities. A storm that struck on Aug. 3 caused the damage, forcing the town to declare a state of emergency. Nearly 105 millimetres of rain fell in just a few hours, oversaturating the soil, sending rushing water down rivers and causing flash floods. A beaver dam also collapsed adding to the water pressure that eventually ripped up asphalt, destroyed a culvert, and prompted a landslide in front of the town’s municipal buildings. Where there had been an important road, a crater nearly 14 metres deep and 21 metres wide, that could hold twice as much water as two Olympic-sized swimming pools, opened up. It stayed empty for months as the town worked to obtain permits from Fisheries and Oceans Canada and the Quebec government to begin repairs. While the crater remains open, residents have been forced to take a long detour they say add hours to their commute. “Instead of taking me seven minutes to get to work, it takes me an hour,” says resident Melanie Bigras. Family members that were neighbours are now divided by distance and concerns are growing about emergency services. Lise Lépine and Real Carrière live less than a kilometre away from the local fire station and it would normally take just a few minutes for first responders to reach them. Now they have to rely on help from the town of Riviere-Rouge 25 kilometres away in case of an emergency. “If I have a stroke, are they going to be here in time?” Lépine asked. “It has been worrisome.” They also now have to drive 40 minutes to reach their mailbox, and 40 minutes to return home. Patching the hole To get the re-building work started, L’Ascension needed the go-ahead from federal and provincial departments. According to a letter reviewed by CTV News, published Oct. 15, from the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, it took 53 days to greenlight the emergency repairs after the town sought authorization. The municipality’s proposal was examined, in part, to ensure the protection of fish and its habitat. In a statement to CTV News, the DFO said that as soon as it received the request from the town, departmental officials began its review. “The assessment determined that measures were required to address impacts to fish and fish habitat,” it read. “DFO already transmitted a letter of advice outlining the best practices to implement for the proposed work, noting that if these best practices are implemented, no permit or Fisheries Act Authorization is required.” Following the review, Quebec’s Department of Domestic Security had to sign-off, and the province had to approve funding. The project will cost nearly $2 million, 85 per cent of which will be covered by Quebec. By early October, many residents of L’Ascension had grown exasperated with the speed of the road repairs. “It felt like something was broken,” says Allard. “When someone has to travel 50 kilometres to get here, when a parent is on one side, a daughter on the other and they are used to get together a lot, it’s difficult.” ‘We are isolated’ There was also another pressing concern. Erosion continued to eat away at the edges of the crater. The precipice was inching closer to an important aqueduct, prompting fears it could eventually collapse. Residents urged the town to pressure the province into fixing the problem. In response the mayor drove to Quebec City to meet officials. The town also sent a legal letter to prove the work was urgently needed, and it organized a demonstration. On Oct. 24, hundreds of people stood on either side of the gulf and held up protest signs. One read “Get us out of here,” while another read “We are isolated.” Four days after that protest, the municipality finally had all its permits and work began almost immediately. “It is a big relief,” says L’Ascension Director General Marc St-Pierre. “It seemed like an uphill battle for so long.” The mayor says environmental reviews should have been done, but St-Pierre says the town had to push to speed up final approvals. With winter looming, a delay of another few weeks could have meant having to put off the project until spring. “Regulation is absolutely important, but in certain cases it adds delays, and unfortunately there are consequences that are very real for a small community like ours,” says St-Pierre. Lightening the regulatory burden Ottawa announced new legislation for Fisheries and Oceans that streamlined the application process for some construction projects that took effect on Oct. 15, Quebec’s new government also promised to cut down on bureaucracy. L’Ascension says it wants to explore other ways to clear hurdles faster in case of any major natural disasters. Earlier this week, L’Ascension city council unanimously approved a resolution to find ways to help lighten the regulatory burden. “We are going to offer our collaboration based on our experience so that we can find ways to speed up the process and ensure it goes as fast as possible,” says St-Pierre. He added that this could be particularly applicable in cases where the work largely involves repairing previously existing infrastructure. In L’Ascension’s case, there have been upgrades, including to the size of the culvert to ensure it could withstand increasingly ferocious weather events. The mayor says since repair work has begun, he has seen a lot of smiles on his residents’ faces. He drives to the site almost every day to see how the re-building is progressing and often stops to talk to those living nearby. Pierre Groulx was sitting on his porch when the mayor pulled up in his vehicle and asked how he felt about the crater now being filled. “I am really looking forward to the reopening,” Groulx said. “My grandson lives on the other side. Now, that’s an 80 kilometre round trip so I don’t see him very much.” The mayor says plans are underway for a party in the local church for the holidays, and he hopes that will double as a party to celebrate the re-unification of the town divided by a storm.
