Fresh from a long battle to open a piggery within the City of Ottawa’s extended boundaries, Cote-Paquette has breezed through approvals for a much larger project in nearby Nation Municipality with nary a squeal of opposition.
While the Quebec firm’s plans for a 3,000 sow operation near St. Albert met with some initial concerns about possible groundwater contamination, they’ve been appeased and the project is sailing ahead, said Nation Mayor Denis Pommainville, adding he expects two Cote-Paquette barns to be built on a 300-acre site over the winter.
The company is now negotiation with farm neighbours to help it handle some of the annual manure output.
Pommainville, a lawyer and member of a prominent area farm family, said the operation meets provincial agricultural standards, along with all municipal requirements and has been issued a building permit. It’s more than 600 metres away from the nearest residence, and 500 metres from the nearest watercourse and has been approved by South Nation Conservation.
Like Cote-Paquette’s 1,045 sow operation planned for the rural Ottawa hamlet of Sarsfield, the St. Albert project is to be located on a former dairy farm. Unlike the Sarsfield case, neighbours - including farmers - didn’t mount a campaign against the proposal.
In the Sarsfield case, Cote-Paquette was forced to take the city to fight city hall to get a building permit to which it was legally entitled. Insisting it didn’t want an intensive hog farm within city limits creating air and noise pollution, along with a risk of manure contaminating local fresh water supplies, council will now attempt to have the permit quashed in court, with a date of Dec. 6 set for a hearing in Ottawa.
Leading the opposition on Ottawa council has been Cumberland Ward Coun. Phil McNeely who fears one pig farm will open the floodgates to countless more. McNeely recently announced his intention to seek the provincial Liberal nomination in Ottawa-Orleans, now held for the Tories by Brian Coburn, former OMAF minister and currently associate minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing.
While Coburn has no bone to pick with properly managed intensive operations, a key plank in McNeely’s platform will involve waging war against factory hog farms.
As is Sarsfield, the St. Albert project is in the riding of Liberal MPP Jean-Marc Lalonde who went to bat against the Ottawa piggery, writing to OMAF Minister Helen Johns requesting her intervention to "ensure the health and safety of the communities adjacent to the proposed hog farm."
With lots of agricultural land available, Pommainville said intensive hog farms are welcome in Nation where they’re treated like any other agricultural operation. They must meet existing requirements and will soon also come under Nutrient Management Act regulations, he pointed out.
While this is the first Quebec-based factory farm in Nation, one has existed without incident for the past six years at nearby St. Isidore, the mayor noted.
Contrary to Sarsfield residents who argued the Cote-Paquette operation planned there would bring few benefits, Pommainville said he expects local fuel vendors, grain farmers, general stores and restaurants to benefit from the presence of the new operation.
From the Archives:
News, December 2002
