Senneville residents upset by the hole thing

BY RAFFY BOUDJIKANIAN

raffy.boudjikanian@transcontinental.ca

About half of a section of Senneville Road has been dug into a deep trench since November, and some residents of the area say they are just about fed up with the construction project by pharmaceutical company Charles River Laboratories.

"I feel like the municipality did not do enough to protect us in this case," said local senior Lina Crevier, who lives with her husband in a house that is adjacent to the section of road where construction is currently taking place.

A U.S.-based company with a manufacturing plant in Senneville, Charles River has had an agreement with the nearby federally funded Ste. Anne veteran's hospital for years to use their pipes to get rid of waste water. However, the hospital gave them a March 1, 2008 ultimatum to come up with an alternate solution.

"The plant recently expanded a lot, and their volume of waste became a lot more than the hospital's pipes could handle," said Ste. Anne’s hospital vice-director, Bernard Laberge. He said he was unable to comment on further details of the hospital's agreement with Charles River.

Crevier said Senneville's town hall sent its residents a message stating that construction should begin in November and end by Dec. 20.

"I think what happened was that (Charles River) obtained permission by the municipality but not the government, so they had to stop the project for a while," Crevier said.

However, Charles River spokesperson Amy Ciancaruso said that all permits had been obtained by the company without any problems at first. "The merger/demerger activity slowed our negotiations with the town of Senneville," she said, "which as a result slowed our ability to secure the appropriate permits."

Senneville Mayor George McLeish explained that all permits had been cleared with the municipality, but Quebec's transport ministry had been unhappy with the company's original plans to place a detour near the highway, and that took some time to clear up.

"It's gone on for long. It should have been finished by Dec. 20," said another resident of the area who wished to remain anonymous due to fear of repercussions with town hall. "This is a very small town. Everyone knows who you are," she said.

Ciancaruso said the negotiations due to the merger/de-merger are also what caused the delay. She said the project would be finished by spring 2008. McLeish estimated the stretch on Senneville Road would be finished by the end of this week, and the entire project by mid-March.

Crevier said town hall had promised to accommodate nearby residents during the construction, but had failed to do so. "The snow removal was done late because the snowploughs couldn't pass through," she said.

Her mail also did not arrive on time, and for the first three weeks of construction she had to go to Beaconsfield's post office to retrieve it, since the postmen could not come through the construction area. "Three weeks later, we were finally able to go get our mail from Senneville's town hall," she said. That building is walking distance from her house.

"I don't know about the three weeks for the mailing," McLeish said. "I initially thought that the post office would bring all the mail to town hall, but they said they couldn’t due to confidentiality reasons," he said.

Senneville demerged from Montreal in January 2006.