Quebec’s environment minister has given the green light to a cleanup plan submitted by Reliance Power Equipment Ltd. to eliminate the health threat of PCB storage at its Pointe-Claire property.
The company had to provide the environment ministry with a plan by Tuesday. On Wednesday, Environment Minister Yves-François Blanchet said the plan submitted had been approved and the company can go ahead with work to secure their work site and get rid of all the PCB-contaminated oil stored right next to a residential area.
The highly toxic chemicals will be trucked out of the site and transported to a treatment plant in Swan Lake, Alta., the only plant in Canada equipped to process PCBs.
Prior to this, the ministry had threatened to go onto the Hymus Blvd. site, do a cleanup and bill the company.
In addition to giving permission to go forward, the ministry announced it had carried out search warrants on Tuesday in the offices of Reliance Power Equipment to seize documents pertinent to the ongoing investigation of how this company was illegally storing PCBs for so many years.