Benjamin Segobaetso – Local Journalism Initiative
Published online August 12, 2026, at www.pontiacjournal.com
MRC PONTIAC – A four-month public consultation process is set to begin on August 24. 2026, as debate continues over the proposed $418 million Samonix land-based salmon farm in Litchfield. Some residents have called for additional environmental scrutiny while the company maintains the project has been designed to meet stringent regulatory standards.
Questions continue to mount over whether regulators have enough independent scientific evidence to determine the project’s long-term environmental impacts on the Ottawa River.
At the coming proceedings, the Bureau d’audiences publiques sur l’environnement (BAPE) will hear submissions from residents, municipalities, scientists and environmental organizations before making recommendations to Quebec’s Ministry of the Environment. The ministry will ultimately decide whether one of Canada’s largest land-based aquaculture projects proceeds.
For some local residents, however, the consultation is not simply another regulatory step. It is viewed an opportunity to challenge a project they believe still contains significant scientific unknowns.
The proposed facility would be constructed less than four kilometres upstream from the Chenaux Dam near Portage-du-Fort. Utilizing a recirculating aquaculture system (RAS), Samonix intends to produce up to 12,000 tonnes of Atlantic salmon annually while recycling more than 99 per cent of its water before releasing treated wastewater into the Ottawa River.
While the company presents the project as environmentally sustainable, critics argue that many of its assurances remain based largely on engineering
projections and predictive computer modelling rather than long-term field data collected under comparable conditions.
Those concerns surfaced repeatedly during BAPE’s June 4 information session, where residents questioned the project’s potential effects on drinking water, fish habitat, river ecology and emergency preparedness. Some participants are now expressing
dissatisfaction lamenting that they left the meeting with more questions than answers.
Citizens express concerns
Among the most vocal are Portage-du-Fort residents Cathy Fox and Sylvia Poetschke, who have joined other citizens in formally requesting that Quebec’s Ministry of the Environment require additional scientific review before issuing any approval.
In a public letter shared with Pontiac Journal (see page 5), they argue that while the information session provided useful background, several important questions were either left unanswered or dismissed too quickly.
Their concerns extend beyond general environmental protection. They question whether the science currently supporting the project is sufficiently robust for a development of this magnitude. One of their principal concerns involves the planned discharge of treated saline wastewater into a freshwater river.
Although Samonix has stated that salt concentrations would remain well below provincial limits, Fox and Poetschke argue that regulatory compliance alone does not necessarily demonstrate an absence of ecological risk.
They note that there appears to be no directly comparable Atlantic salmon operation discharging saline effluent into a freshwater river under similar conditions. Without such precedent, they argue that predicting long-term ecological impacts becomes considerably more uncertain.
Rather than relying predominantly on modelling, they are calling for independent, site-specific studies examining how salinity, nutrients and other contaminants may behave under changing river conditions, including seasonal flooding, drought and increasingly frequent extreme weather events.
Their letter also raises questions about cumulative impacts. While each individual discharge may comply with regulatory limits how will repeated discharges over decades affect aquatic ecosystems?
“Our goal is to ensure the safe condition of the water we will be drinking as well preserving the ecology of the aquatic life and surrounding environment,” they told the Journal.
Samonix responds to concerns Speaking exclusively to the Pontiac Journal, Samonix spokesperson Rémi Bertrand noted that years of engineering work and international research underpin the proposal. Bertrand said the facility has been designed to comply with all environmental requirements established by Quebec’s Ministry of the Environment, noting that the salmon will be raised in water with a salinity of approximately two parts per thousand (2ppt), compared with roughly 35 ppt found in seawater.
According to Bertrand, Samonix has also consulted Ottawa Riverkeeper on scientific and legal aspects of the proposal while benchmarking land-based aquaculture facilities internationally. He highlighted that the company studied similar operations in Japan and visited an Aqua Group facility in China, in addition to touring numerous facilities around the world.
“We visited every facility in the world for bench-marking purposes,” Bertrand said.
Bertrand also emphasized that aquaculture remains one of Canada’s most tightly regulated industries. “We are required to constantly monitor water quality to ensure contaminants do not accumulate.”
Bertrand underlined the project’s potential economic benefits, including hundreds of construction jobs, approximately 100 permanent positions and increased domestic salmon production. He also argued that land-based aquaculture eliminates many environmental issues associated with open-net salmon farming, including sea lice, escaped fish and interactions with wild salmon populations.
Opponents do not necessarily dispute those advantages. Instead, they argue that economic benefits should not substitute for comprehensive environmental evidence.
With public consultations beginning later this month, the debate is expected to intensify. The consultation process will provide an opportunity for scientists, environmental organizations, Indigenous communities, municipalities and residents to scrutinize the project’s underlying assumptions before Quebec’s Ministry of the Environment makes its final decision.
