Blasting work blamed for carbon monoxide leaks in Gatineau

Blasting work blamed for carbon monoxide leaks in Aylmer

Gas released during work on nearby housing project, says developer

Carbon monoxide leaks triggered the evacuation of several homes on rue Jean-Lesage in western Gatineau, Que., last week, officials say.

On Wednesday night, fire crews got a 911 call from the city's Aylmer sector, according to Alain Loyer, operations division chief for Gatineau's fire department.

"We responded as usual to investigate," Loyer told Radio-Canada in French. "Upon arrival, we noticed the level was above the normal threshold, so we made sure to ventilate all the gas.”

Firefighters were able to get those levels back to normal, Loyer said. While they can't be certain where the leak came from, excavation and blasting work at a nearby housing project is the most plausible explanation, he said.

The next day, firefighters received another call from the same area, Loyer said, for similar reasons.

Harmonie Construction is the real estate developer behind the Place Carré Lesage project and is building duplex and triplex homes in the area.

“What happened was that following the explosions, carbon monoxide was released," said Maxime Thérien, the developer's president and CEO.

"And since it couldn't escape upwards … the gas found cracks in the rock and ended up in French drains and residential basements, which triggered the detectors."

Thérien said the homes in the area were entrusted to a general contractor which then subcontracted the blasting work to another contractor.

The leaks have worried Aylmer residents like Nicolas Mognon-Loyer.

Mognon-Loyer said he's only been in the neighbourhood for a few days, but his carbon monoxide detector went off two nights in a row.

“My biggest concern after two back-to-back incidents like this is, what are the protocols?” he said.

Mognon-Loyer said his sister, who lives in his basement, suffered carbon monoxide poisoning. She was given oxygen, he said, and had to be hospitalized.

Some residents also said on social media that they weren’t able to get in touch with their city councillor, Sonia Ben-Arfa, in recent days.

Ben-Arfa told Radio-Canada that while she'd been in Edmonton last week, she'd also been getting emails "for two weeks now" about the project — both about the carbon monoxide incidents and dust from the construction site.

“We will be organizing a public meeting soon, co-ordinating the schedules of Harmonie Construction and the city," said Ben-Arfa, the councillor for the Lucerne district.

"We want to have various people present to answer residents' questions."

Blasting work is regulated by the province of Quebec, Ben-Arfa added. Companies must provide carbon monoxide detectors for buildings within a 100 square-metre perimeter of any blasting, she said.

Thérien said those guidelines were being followed and that additional measures were also taken by the blasting subcontractor.

With files from Tom Chazelle Schulze, Charlotte Tremblay and Fatoumata Traore