The Contaminated Land Rehabilitation Program (Revi-Sols)

The Revi-Sols program was initiated by the Québec government in 1998. The Ville de Montréal administers the program on its territory on behalf of Québec’s Ministère de l’Environnement.

From 1998 to 2003, Revi-Sols funded 132 projects in Montréal. A total of 60 million dollars in subsidies were used to rehabilitate 206 hectares of contaminated land. The affected real estate projects had a total value of approximately 1.9 billion dollars and included the construction of 5,600 housing units. The program has been extended to March 2005, with the injection of an additional 15 million dollars.

The Contaminated Land Rehabilitation Program (Revi-Sols)

Implementation measures

Create a database listing contaminated or possibly contaminated sites.
Develop new funding mechanisms to promote the rehabilitation of contaminated sites.
Facilitate the use of a risk-analysis approach for managing contaminated soil and consider adjusting regulations, especially in the case of high-density projects and the rehabilitation of certain industrial sites.
Establish a program to support research on and the use of innovative techniques for managing contaminated soils, particularly to substantially reduce the volume of contaminated material to be removed from a site:
- Make greater use of lightly contaminated soils as landfill or for building noise-abatement berms;
- Consider establishing a disposal and redistribution centre in Montréal for excavated soils that are not heavily contaminated;
- Promote the reuse of excavated materials such as construction lumber, concrete and asphalt, in order to keep them out of landfill sites.
Foster the development of affordable and efficient biological and physiochemical treatment technologies for contaminated soil.