An article in the Montreal Gazette (Friday, 19 November 2021), "City to Bury St-Pierre River on court order", got me to finally visit what is left of the St. Pierre River, and I am glad that I did. I've been interested in the St. Pierre River for several years, but as for visiting this last surviving section of the river, it never happened until the other day. My only experience of the river was when walking through the underpass on Westminister Avenue just above Cote St-Luc Road, you can hear the sound of the river as it runs through underground pipes. Today, located in Meadowbrook Golf Course, you can see the only part of the St. Pierre River still above ground, and this will soon be buried. The Gazette article says that the river is polluted, so surrounding trees should be cut down, and the river should be buried, not exactly an approach that fits into our present age of conservation and climate change. In fact, the more I think about it the more ridiculous it becomes, what ever happened to cleaning up the source of the pollution.
Other cities have buried their at-the-time inconveniently located rivers and some of these cities are working at recovering--better to say, "uncovering"--these rivers. Here we are making sure whatever is left of the river is buried. Sometimes I think of how different Montreal would be had the St. Pierre River not have been buried. Imagine owning a house in the city with a creek running by in the back yard; okay, maybe you wouldn't like this but this is something some of us would love to have. A friend in Baltimore grew up with the Herring Run River across the street from where he lived and where lived later in life. Birds, wild life, even deer could be seen going to the river, it's a green space for animals and people, a sign that some little bit of nature still exists. But it is not to be here.
Personally, I think this court order only suits developers who have big plans to build on the site, no doubt just what we need, more condos. I am told that the site is protected but, as with most things, I am a skeptic. Here are photographs I took of the St. Pierre River the other day.
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| Just above the culvert pipe in this photo is the Toe Blake Park; the culvert pipe is for water from the buried St. Pierre River but it also contains contaminants from local residences. This contamination is the reason given for burying the river after the area has been decontaminated. The extent of this pollution is unknown to me. |
