Frederic-back park, Montreal, Canada: How 40 million tonnes of solid waste support a public park

Abstract

The City of Montreal, Quebec, Canada, took over the management, in 1988, of a former limestone quarry that was also used as landfill site. The surrounding population of this site, located in a densely populated area, was exposed to many nuisances related to the rock extraction and transformation and to the landfilling activities. So, the main goal of the city was to rehabilitate this degraded site, build a public park and give it back to the population. The site’s total area covers 192 ha. From this surface, 72 ha were devoted to the landfill. Over the years, 40 million tons of municipal solid waste have been landfilled. Building a park on such a large site that still produces landfill gas and leachate involves several major challenges. The priority was first to control, with high efficiency, the landfill gas and the leachate to minimize environmental risks and impacts. In parallel, a process involving design workshops, research, testing, brainstorming and topographical models was launched in order to develop the Master Plan for the park construction. The Master Plan provides the framework for teams working on the project, sets the guidelines for the site’s rehabilitation and phase-by-phase transformation based on the principles of sustainable development. The park construction was initiated in the mid nineties. Nowadays, 48 hectares are already open to the population. The Frédéric-Back Park will be finalized around 2026 and will then be completely accessible to the public. This is the result of a close collaboration between the Department of Parks and the Department of Environment of the City of Montreal in order to meet the needs of both past and future functions of this rehabilitated site.