'River guardians' search for source of microplastics fouling Rivière Magog in Eastern Townships

Over the last few weeks, Gabriel Provencher-Pharand has been criss-crossing the Rivière Magog in a small motor boat, searching for tiny bits of plastic that have washed up on the banks. 

The Magog flows from Lake Memphremagog, in Quebec's Eastern Townships, through Lac Magog and past the city of Sherbrooke on the Lac des Nations before emptying into the Rivière Saint-François, a tributary of the St. Lawrence River.

"We have to act," said Provencher-Pharand, a technician with the freshwater environmental group Regroupement des associations pour la protection de l'environnement des lacs et des bassins versants (RAPPEL). 

"When you see ducks in areas where there are microplastics, you wonder if it's getting into their system and if it's affecting them."

For the past 12 years, RAPPEL has partnered with the city of Sherbrooke as its "river guardian."

Concerns raised by citizens about the accumulation of microplastics in the water system prompted the city last July to ask RAPPEL to map its findings and compare it to a similar undertaking in 2018. 

The current project is not yet finished, but Provencher-Pharand says he has already identified 15 troublesome spots.

"We found plastics of different sizes, of different types," he said.

These particles become entangled in the aquatic vegetation and are difficult to remove from the water, he said. That is why RAPPEL's experts say it's critical to find the source of the contamination.

Sherbrooke spokesperson Jean-Daniel Duval said in a statement that because it involves industrial waste, the microplastics file was turned over to the provincial Environment Ministry in 2019, though the city has continued to follow up with the ministry in the ensuing years. 

In 2020, two years after RAPPEL first alerted Sherbrooke to the discovery of microplastics contamination in the river, the ministry cracked down on Plastimum, a local plastic recycling company.

The ministry held Plastimum responsible for discharging microplastics into the storm sewer system, which empties into the river.

The company publicly denied any responsibility for the improper disposal of plastic waste, but nevertheless, it took corrective measures to satisfy the ministry's demands.

In May 2021, the ministry issued a third notice to the company for the storage of non-compliant raw materials. The corrective measures put in place by Plastimum to prevent any further release of plastic into the environment are still under review, Radio-Canada has learned.