ZIS: Ministry of the Environment responds to questions from CHIP 101,9

ZIS: Ministry of the Environment responds to questions from CHIP 101,9

The Ministry of the Environment and Climate Change (Ministère de l’Environnement et de la Lutte contre les changements climatiques) responded to questions from CHIP 101.9 via e-mail regarding the Government’s Draft Law on Special Intervention Zones (ZIS). In their response, the Ministry states that the outlining of new Flood Zones as defined in the ZIS, are based on remote satellite scanning images in 2017 and 2019, aerial photographs in 2019, traces left by the 2019 flood (affected areas) and the data provided by the Ministry of Public Safety (ministère de la Sécurité publique). The ZIS therefore includes, according to the Ministry, the delimitation of the flooded areas in 2017 and 2019 as well as the mapping of the floodable zones integrated in the development plans of the MRC’s and the municipal regulations.

The main error in the outlining of the ZIS, according to the Ministry, comes from satellite images of the remote scanning in 2017. As a result, the outlines were imprecise and overestimated territory covered by the ZIS. An update of the territory covered will be done to exclude the main sources of errors.

Other questions were asked:

The August 19th deadline:
The Ministry of the Environment say that the government has put in place the conditions so that modifications will be effected within the agreed deadlines.

Why the municipality of Rapides-des-Joachims was left out of the map:
While the municipality was flooded, the Ministry replied that it is possible that some areas flooded are excluded from the territory covered by the ZIS, especially if none of the sources were made available during the drafting of the ZIS or because of inaccurate data.