Quebec government downplays Lac-Megantic pollution
Wednesday, August 14, 2013, 3:43 PM -
The Quebec government is downplaying concerns about environmental damage from the Lac-Megantic train disaster.
File photo // Wikimedia Commons
The province's environment department has released a series of charts listing the level of various pollutants in the water and air in the area.
It says the statistics show, in most cases, a return to the concentration levels present before the July 6 accident.
The government says only its own statistics will be released on the Environment Department website -- not those compiled by third parties.
That announcement comes one day after the release of a report by an NGO, linked to Greenpeace, that detected an astronomical level of pollutants in the neighbouring Chaudiere River.
For instance, the NGO report announced a presence of carcinogenic polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons more than 394,000 times greater at the water surface than the limit considered safe by the Environment Department.
