While facing a housing shortage like many other municipalities in Quebec, Saint-Lin-Laurentides is forced to limit residential construction on its territory due to a major drinking water supply issue.
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The problem in this town in the Lanaudière region is such that the municipal council has decreed a temporary freeze on residential development projects of three or more units.
“Saint-Lin-Laurentides has experienced very strong growth over the past decade, so the demand for drinking water consumption has increased enormously,” said Mathieu Maisonneuve, new mayor of Saint-Lin-Laurentides since November, in an interview. latest.
“The problem increases as time progresses,” he added. So we said to ourselves that we were going to stop residential development, the time to find new kinds of water supply.
However, the mayor assures that several actions are currently underway, ranging from awareness campaigns to the construction of new wells, through water use monitoring programs and the replacement of several municipal equipment.
“We have wells under construction, but the process takes 12 to 24 months, explained Mr. Maisonneuve. And it is not guaranteed that these wells will be functional because you have to do tests and ask for authorizations.
The City must therefore carry out continuous water research “so as not to find themselves with their pants down if there are wells that do not work”, underlined Mr. Maisonneuve.
On Wednesday evening, the municipal administration invites citizens to a public information meeting. Experts will be present and will explain to them the state of the situation in detail. The possible solutions in progress will also be presented to the citizens.
“My bet is to ask people to pay attention to their consumption and to establish a partnership with the population until we can find new sources of water,” the mayor told us.
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