Preserving air quality, water quality, wildlife and green spaces is what drives our environmental protection actions. Key achievements in 2020 included:
- Continuation of the greening campaign begun in 2018 through MPA’s participation in the Montreal Greening Leaders Committee and the promise to plant 2,000 trees within five years. In 2020, 160 trees were planted on or near Port facilities, bringing our total to 897 trees planted. Among the locations chosen for planting this year were the Cité du Havre sector in the Ville-Marie borough, the Cast berms in Mercier Hochelaga-Maisonneuve, and the berms along sections 98-100 in Montreal East.
- Grass beds were created to protect copper redhorse fish and measures were taken to protect the habitat of the chorus frog on the site of the future Contrecœur Terminal.
- Construction of three new artificial concrete and sand nesting boxes for bank swallows in Contrecœur. As in 2019, the nesting boxes were immediately adopted by many pairs of bank swallows, amply fulfilling their mission.
- Four projects carried out in partnership with the St. Lawrence Action Fund aimed at preserving purple martin colonies, restoring and conserving wetlands, controlling common reeds and enhancing the IBA (Important Bird Area) of the Îles de Contrecœur National Wildlife Area. Pending in 2021 are two new projects, one to protect the American water-willow and the other to hold workshops on the impact of agricultural practices on birds and the construction of nesting boxes for tree-nesting ducks.
- A second season of urban beekeeping at MPA headquarters. While most employees had to work remotely this year, the bees conducted their business as usual throughout the summer and produced their second crop of honey in the fall.
On the air quality front, throughout the year the MPA maintained its ability to refuel ships with LNG or electricity in its goal to reduce GHG emissions. In all, sixteen wintering ships used one of our shore power connections during their stay in Montreal, and thirty-one used our LNG refuelling service. In 2020, the MPA’s own activities generated close to 3.3075 tonnes of GHGs (CO2 eq.), a reduction of 216 tonnes (5.3 %) since 2016 and of 1001 tonnes (25 %) since 2007.
Details of the sustainable development actions are published in the MPA’s sustainable development report.