“The drains, too, this hot weather, at their grated bars tell tales of the stagnant petulance imprisoned within them.” – regarding the Craig Street sewer, Montreal Witness, 1872.

“It was a constant fight against humidity, disease and decay. It seemed as though all the crap that had oozed from the slums of Montreal for over a century had collected here.” – Marcel Talon’s account of the sewer, 1993.

Since launching this website just over a year ago, three questions I’ve been asked most frequently have involved what sewers smell like, how I get down there to begin with, and whether or not I’ve ever run into anyone else while inside of them. The first two make a good deal of sense. After all, who wouldn’t want to know what raw sewage smells like? And how does one get inside a sewer?

But the third question involving encounters with other people is a curious one mostly because it hasn’t happened yet. Not only that, but I can’t ever imagine it happening either- at least not here in Montreal. Our sewers aren’t exactly the most easily accessible things in the world, nor are they the most hospitable of  places. I’m not even sure how often people working for the city venture underground to have a look at things these days. The preferred method seems to involve the use of remote controlled video inspection systems.

The question likely stems from the often mythical stories from elsewhere around the world involving people found underground, from the “Mole People” of New York City, to the Cataphiles of Paris. Of course, Hollywood movies and various popular works of fiction have long relied on the underground as a staple home to a variety of miscreants and monsters. Perhaps it’s scenes such as this that come to mind whenever a city’s sewers are mentioned:

Most well-known stories involving the underground tend to be set in places other than Montreal though. CBC journalist Brian Stewart once stated: “No one has ever sought to rhapsodize over Montreal’s sewers, however, and certainly no one ever famous has seen fit to hide there.”

But despite this, it would be a mistake to pretend that there hasn’t been a long history of people who have passed through these systems.

For the most part, this aspect of Montreal’s history may not exactly be the stuff that legends are made of, but it is one that deserves to be documented in more detail than it has already.

Earliest Accounts

“When we see men at work on the sewers from time to time, the generality of us citizens are impressed that some wise movement is being made towards  ameliorating the sanitary condition of the city. - letter to the editor, Montreal Evening Post,  1879

The earliest records of Montreal’s sewers tend to be fairly cut and dry affairs. Most are either city planning documents or financial records and references to people tend to be limited either to the names of engineers or foremen. Occasionally we’re given the number of workers employed, but little else emerges from the bureaucratic muck. It isn’t until the 1870s where we begin to get a bit more detail beyond mere technical and financial matters.

A foreman’s daily work journal from 1877 detailing the reconstruction of the Colborne Street sewer makes reference to workers unable to continue due “sore hands.” Elsewhere in the journal  remarks are made about the weather (“splendid day”), which is about as much personal interjection as one could hope to find in such a document.

Fortunately, newspaper articles written during this era offer a bit more colour to the projects taking place in the city. As its name would imply, an 1876 issue of the Canadian Illustrated News contains drawings depicting the reconstruction of the Craig Street Sewer. This 8 foot tunnel which took three years to complete, presently runs underneath rue St Antoine. It was built to help improve the poor drainage of the smaller sewer set in place years earlier. It would  also become the principal waste conduit for the city. For the first time, not only do we get to see a picture of a sewer in Montreal, but we get to see the workers as well.

Details of illustrations depicting work on the Craig Street Sewer during 1876.

The scans from the paper are frustratingly dark and fuzzy, but here we see the faces of men working amongst the stationary wooden derricks, the crib work, and work horses pulling wagons. In one frame we also see an excited looking group of men collecting their money during pay day.

"Pay Day at the works"

An article written a year later in the Montreal Daily Witness reveals that the crew for the Craig Street Tunnel works was “91 French-speaking to 61 English-speaking.” Typical of the time, this French majority is described as being “excessive.” Another article states that of this crew, “not a life had been lost and accidents had been rare” and as proof of the project’s success in this particular area, we are told that the physician’s bill was a mere $32.

Also in the Daily Witness, two years after the completion of the tunnel, is found a wonderful account involving one writer’s trip through the Craig Street sewer. The article describes the sights, the sounds and, yes, even the smell of the sewers. It is a report that’s as true today as it was back then.

“It was a happy disappointment to find so little odor present, after having heard so much about sewer gas; the smell was just perceptible and that was all. The atmosphere was unpleasantly warm and the work of wading through the water rather fatiguing.”

Through this article we also learn that boats were once used for sewer inspections, as revealed in a second-hand anecdote involving two workers almost getting swept away after losing a pole used for steering. Despite this near-dire story though, the underlying tone of the story is one of adventure and often humour.

“The garments assumed for the occasion had evidently been designed with a view to utility rather than beauty, and the good people who stared at the uncouth apparitions assembled in Victoria Square might well be excused for their curiosity. “

Decades later, news from this same sewer would take on a much darker tone after an eight year old girl fell into it through a manhole cover that a city worker had inadvertently left open. She was quickly swept away with the sewer’s current. The news made the New York Times.

New York Times article from the Spring of 1921.

Through more detailed articles in the Montreal Gazette, we learn that grappling irons were dragged through the sewer, and one brave soul from Verdun even donned a diving suit to search for the missing girl- a task that many men were said to have refused. Despite these efforts her body was never found.

Things Pick Up Underground

In the beginning of the 20th century, more details begin to emerge involving work in the sewers, mostly during their construction. Waves of immigration from countries such as Italy and Poland add new players to the labour scene, new contractors and further tensions amongst workers often desperate to find work. New tools such as mechanical trenchers also begin to be put to use, thus reducing labourers required for certain operations such as trenching. Concrete begins to replace masonry requiring a different skill sets and much experimentation as was the case with the Notre Dame de Grace sewer.

Sewer construction slowed down over the course of World War I, but during the years afterwards, in particular the Great Depression, an enormous amount of work underground was accomplished. Montreal really had no choice at this point, due in part to an aging sewer system no longer able to keep up with the growth of the city. Newly paved streets in particular caused excessive amounts of water to enter the sewers.

One month prior to the great Stock Market Crash, over seven million dollars was authorized by Montreal’s City Council to cover over Riviere St. Pierre, a project which would result in one of Montreal’s largest sewers.

In the midst of the depression work continued to increase thanks in part to an enormous “work-for-relief” scheme devised to replace direct aid for the unemployed. Between local, provincial and national levels of government, an additional 11 million was spent to help put an estimated 10,000 men to work building fifteen different sewers.

It must have been viewed as win-win situation for all involved, especially from the City’s point of view. On one hand, it would receive an upgraded sewer system built using a large, and readily accessible supply of labour, and on the other, the “social menace” of direct aid could be avoided entirely. In one telling quote from the City’s initial report, the project could help deter “a form of Socialism analogous with the dole system of Britain, destined above all to erect parasitism and shiftlessness into a social system.”

Sewer work in Verdun, 1938

A few details of this workforce can be gleaned from the Gazette archives. Preference was given to married men and to those with families. They were paid upwards of 40 cents an hour- a rate higher than what was commonly paid.

“Inspectors will be named by the city who will make contact with parish authorities and secure lists of the biggest families in Montreal. From that list will be chosen the men who are to go work for the winter be removed from direct relief.”

Another article further explains that “if some men are unable to stand the work, or will not work, replacements will be made in the same fashion. “Won’t works’ will be dealt with severely, according to a plan now being studied at the City Hall.”

The Iberville collector sewer, September 2007.

“Donning rubber boots, rubber coats and hats, reporters scrambled down a man-hole and spent nearly an hour learning all about Montreal’s biggest east end sewer at first hand. Obliging company officials and sewer commission engineers explained the construction details as the curious news-gatherers- carrying flashlights, and warned not to smoke – waded about in water which was sometimes up to a foot deep. Reporters were assured that the water was not “sewage” – they took their word for it.”

Incidentally, two panels over on the same page is another story about a local politician scheming to have unemployed men trucked out to Ste Therese to collect peat from bogs to be used as fuel. “So certain am I that the majority of men on the dole are anxious for anything to keep them employed, I am going to try all kinds of things to keep my ward men busy.”

Evidently the sewers weren’t enough to keep everyone busy.

Clearer Faces

Meilleur Atlantique sewer inspection photo from 1955

“The big collector sewers are large enough for two cars to pass and the maintenance men walk through them daily on inspection trips. That, says Lebeau, introduces the element of danger. A brief rainstorm in the city can fill the passages to the top in a few minutes and men trapped below would drown. Often when men are underground a man is stationed on the surface with a barometer and to watch the weather if rain threatens.”

Salut! A hello from the past inside the Meilleur Atlantique overflow conduit.

While it threatens to veer towards hyberbole, it’s the sort of article that often does its subject matter justice.

“Sometimes the brick walls, dripping and aging in the dark, are suddenly washed golden by the flashlight beams of wading men. And as their lights play on twisting currents destined finally for the ocean, this scene, in this place, is not without a fleeing and eerie beauty.”

More interesting are the quotes from the sewer inspectors themselves who speak of their encounters with rats, the odd “wild cat” as well as the hazards involved in their occupation. “You can only work here if you don’t think about it… about what’s in the tunnel. I keep busy, I never think about it, so it never bothers me.”

An (almost) Perfect Sewer Plan

No story about a city’s history of people and sewers would be complete without at least one good story involving criminal activity. While Montreal’s sewers have been the subject of countless contracting scams and likely used for the discarding of illegal substances, only one case involving criminals stands out as being noteworthy- even legendary.

In 1992, career criminal Marcel Talon hatched a simple plan: dig a tunnel from the Craig Street sewer into the basement level of the Bank of Montreal. It’s here where money is (or once was) held temporarily before being placed into vaults. Knowing this, Talon gathered together a small group of accomplices and worked out the timing so that they could walk in, hold the place up, get downstairs, load up their bags with money. While the police had the building surrounded, they’d use their tunnel as an escape route.

As mentioned toward the beginning of this entry, the Craig Street sewer presently runs below rue Saint-Antoine, and conveniently enough, passes very close to the north side of the Bank of Montreal building. All that would be required would be the digging of an additional tunnel roughly 30 feet in length.

Detail of City Sewer map showing highlighted paths of the Craig Street Sewer and Talon's excavation.

Of course all this required months worth of research and preparation. Using sewer maps from the city’s planning department, they decided the best entry point into the sewer would be roughly 2kms East of the bank using a manhole near St. Denis and rue Saint-Louis. Neither the manhole they used or the small side-pipe they used to enter the Craig Street sewer appear to exist today.

As to not arouse any suspicion before entering the sewers, they disguised themselves as city workers, and went so far as to spend $35,000 modifying a truck to look like an official city works vehicle. Since the manhole was situated at the edge of the street curb, they simply had someone park overtop of the manhole while they were busy underground.

Talon's entry point at the corner of rues St. Louis and Bonsecours.

An inflatable zodiac, complete with an electric motor was used to get from their entry point over to the area that was to be tunneled. The sewer usually only has two feet of water flowing through it. Not only this but it’s very much full of a century’s worth of sediment including a good number of rocks brought down through the sewer’s snow dumps. Given this, they went so went so far as to build three dams to raise the water level high enough to accommodate their boat. From there it was (almost) all smooth sailing.

They smashed their way through the side wall of the sewer and in early spring of 1993 began work on the tunnel towards the bank, building dykes around the entranceway to prevent it from flooding during wet weather. Judging by photos it appears as though they made a fine mess of the sewer during the process.

The entrance to Talon's tunnel.

Today this section of the Craig Street sewer is considerably tidier looking, but traces of Marcel Talon’s tunnel can still be found today. Its entrance, wisely bricked off by the City.

Talon's tunnel (on right) as found today.

In order to prevent their 1.5 meter tunnel from falling in on itself, they used wooden beams and telescoping metal poles for support. Thirteen meters worth of excavation and an unspecified number of days later they reached the foundations of the bank which they spent close to a day smashing (and burning) their way through. Eventually they reached a point where a single drill-hole could be made through to the money room. Once they had determined the thickness of the walls they were able to dig out a section that left a 7cm thick section between the tunnel and the room on the other side.

Talon's makeshift tunnel between rue St. Antoine and the Bank of Montreal's foundations.

The idea was that the remainder could then be taken care of with thermal lances and magnesium bars. On the day of the hold-up, someone inside the tunnel was to be given the signal to start the burning process. Upwards of 200 million dollars would be gathered up and then they’d escape.

All this was supposed to have happened and most likely would have had it not for one occurrence that put an end to their planned heist. While Talon and his gang were elsewhere, a tree, no less than 10cm in diameter fell through into the tunnel. It was the result of sub-surface erosion or perhaps the weight of a snowplow. Regardless of the cause, it left a meter wide sink-hole in the sidewalk in front of the bank. The city was immediately called in to investigate. From that point on it was game over.

Despite the best efforts of police and other investigators, the would-be thieves were never found. It wasn’t until Talon, later arrested for the robbery of an armoured truck, signed an immunity deal with Crown prosecutors in 1994  that all was revealed. A year later, Talon authored a book about his criminal activities entitled Et Que Ca Saute! Loosely translated: hurry it up!

A decade later, the book was used as inspiration for the movie Le Derniere Tunnel, set in Montreal and not filmed in the Craig Street Sewer, but in the nearby and significantly drier Brock Street tunnel.

Urban Explorers Take Over

As mentioned earlier, sewers are no longer frequented by people to the same extent that  they once were. It’s been close to twenty years since the island last constructed a large-scale sewer and occupational health and safety regulations have pretty much ensured that sewer inspection gangs are a thing of the past. In addition, sewers are routinely dealt with externally. Instead, high-power vacuums attached to trucks are used to deal with clogs while CCTV or SONAR devices get used for actual inspections. That only leaves people such as myself and a few other like-minded urban explorers left roaming these systems the old-fashioned way.

For the most extent, it’s been urban explorers who have been keeping  the tradition of sewer-walking alive and well. As a bonus many have taken the time to document their experiences. Of note are underground trailblazers Urban Exploration Montreal (UEM) whose  website holds a nice record of their first foray into a storm drain back in 2002. While they never did venture into the combined sewers of Montreal, they did make valuable (and inspiring) inroads through other equally impressive underground systems.

Adding to the list of contributors are nel58 who stepped things up considerably when she, TaP and D-v-S delved into the Saint-Pierre Collector during the winter of 2005. News of their adventure soon made it to Toronto and elsewhere via the website UER and  helped establish Montreal as a city that had great potential for underground exploration. Having heard of her endeavors, I wasted no time in meeting up with her when I first moved to Montreal in the fall of 2006.

Looking into the small pipe leading towards the Craig Street Sewer, March 2007. (Photo courtesy of nel58)

Shortly thereafter we nervously made our way into the Craig Street sewer. Ill-equipped and unsure of what we were getting ourselves into, we received our first taste of a 125 year-old sewer. We were unaware of the history behind it and of the people who had made their way through it prior to our arrival. Much like the reporter from the Montreal Witness in 1877, we were taken in by the sewer’s peculiar beauty. From that point forward we only wanted to see more.

Grit removal tanks of Montreal's wastewater treatment plant.

Montreal’s wastewater treatment plant can be found at the far east end of the island in Pointe Aux Trembles. It’s the largest in North America and ranks the third largest in the world- capable of handling 32 cubic metres of water a second.  Raw sewage (usually) ends up here via a network of deep-level tunnels referred to as interceptors. These interceptors form a ring around the island, collecting and distributing wastewater to the plant before it has a chance to enter the surrounding rivers. To get a better sense of how the interceptors work, you can have a look at the entry I wrote  here.

Montreal's wastewater treatment plant as seen from Microsoft Live Maps.

While it’s an impressive system in terms of its scope and capacity, the treatment process itself leaves much to be desired. In fact, it’s actually one of the worst in Canada. A national “report card” issued by the Sierra Club in 2004 gave the city’s treatment process a grade of F-. The only other city to receive a grade worse than Montreal was Victoria, a place which doesn’t even have a treatment process in place yet.

The biggest problem is that the plant only provides primary treatment of its sewage. Most other cities across Canada deliver secondary and even tertiary treatment of wastewater resulting in far cleaner water. By comparison, the effluent from Montreal’s plant remains full of pharmaceuticals, heavy metals, and a multitude of other contaminants. While this pollution is usually kept clear from the shores of Montreal, it inevitably ends up somewhere downstream of the island where the effluent has been known to be wreaking havoc with the river’s ecosystem.

Effluent plume from the treatment plant's discharge location east of Pointe Aux Trembles. Source: Environment Canada

Even during the era of its conception during the late 1960s, Montreal’s proposed treatment plant was deemed to be inadequate to solve the problem of worsening water pollution. Secondary treatment schemes were entertained, but the costs involved were considered too high for it to be considered feasible. Instead, the plan was to incorporate additional levels of treatment to the plant after it was completed, which at the time was expected to be 1981. It was thought that by then “cheaper and better schemes may be available.”

Montreal has always been behind the times in terms of sewage treatment. While much time and money was put into developing its large-scale collector sewers between 1920 and 1965, their contents simply flowed directly out into the open waters surrounding the island.

Baby Steps

Perhaps anticipating future problems, in 1930, the Province of Quebec ordered that Montreal start treating some of the sewage flowing into Riviere Des Prairies. Shortly thereafter, Montreal began work on the North Interceptor. This 14 foot tunnel was intended to transfer sewage towards a site on Isle de la Visitation where it was thought that a local treatment plant could eventually be built. The interceptor was such a low priority that it took 25 years to complete. As for the proposed treatment plant, ground was never even broken and by 1967, plans for its construction were officially scrapped.

Final inspection of the North Interceptor sewer in 1955, 25 years after the start of its construction. Source: City Archives of Montreal

From Bad to Worse

Editorial cartoon from 1945 - "O rivières de chou nous!"

For close to a century, Montreal could always rely on the swift-moving waters of the St. Lawrence, Riviere des Prairies to whisk sewage away from the island.  However, by the 1940s, it was becoming obvious that this practice was no longer working as well as it had in the past. Public swimming areas around the island were being forced to close. The waters were starting to foul. Clearly, there was no way of hiding the fact that the practice of continuously dumping sewage into the open waters was causing problems. Still, it would take another thirty years before concrete steps would be taken to help remedy the situation.

Isle St. Helen beach signage - from no littering in 1937 to no bathing in 1941. Source: Pistard Archives

By the 1960s, an average of 400+ million gallons of sewage a day was being discharged directly into the waters surrounding the island.  By contrast, during this same period, Toronto was cleaning 98% of its wastewater using a combination of four treatment plants. Montreal couldn’t claim to match this percentage until 1996. It would be the last major city in North America to start treating its sewage.

Starting to Get Serious

1970 map showing preliminary paths of the island's interceptors and locations of its treatment facilities. Source: City Archives of Montreal

In the summer of 1967, during the middle of Expo, mayor Jean Drapeau’s engineering department released a report proposing, not one, but two treatment plants for the island- one which could handle the north/east watershed and another for the south/west encompassing downtown Montreal. Over the next few years, much debate amongst the island’s communities took place involving  where these facilities would be located, how much could be spent and when they might be completed.  A site adjacent to the Victoria Bridge (previously used as a parking lot for Expo) was considered as was Isle St-Therese, but both were later shelved due to “environmental concerns.” Years would pass before a master plan was drafted.

It was eventually decided to build just one treatment plant in Point Aux Trembles  and eventually use it to treat all the island’s municipalities’ sewage. Both the North Interceptor and the St-Pierre collector system would be incorporated into the plan- measures which city officials claimed would help save millions of dollars. Work finally commenced in 1974 with the expansion of the North Interceptor. It was expected that the system could be completed and functioning by 1981. Turned out they were about 15 years off the mark.

Sewerage Scandals

The website for Montreal’s treatment plant provides a timeline highlighting key dates in the construction of its treatment system. It’s a decent overview, but it conveniently leaves out all the problems encountered along the way. There are no indications as to why the project took close to twenty years to complete at cost of over a billion dollars more than the initial estimates.

Graph from 1976 showing the escalating costs of the treatment project based on rising inflation and a completion date of 1986. Source: City Archives of Montreal

To go through that history of problems in detail would take far too long for one blog entry,  but one can get a sense of it all by reading through the newspaper headlines that appeared over the duration of the project.

1964 – “Sewage plant site Marked”
1967 – “Construction of wastewater treatment plant to cost $131,000,000″
1968 – “Roxboro residents warned: don’t swim in the Back River”
1969 – “Town of Mount Royal against city on new sewage plant”
1970 – “Clean air group claims sewage project ‘Waste of Money’”
1971 – “Montreal’s sewage treatment plan probed further by Quebec”
1971 – “Montreal to build $300,000,000 sewage disposal plant”
1973 – “Quebec tells Montreal to accelerate work on sewage system”
1974 – “Quick start to sewer plan urged”
1974 – “Pollution ratings close eight more area beaches”
1974 – “Montreal’s $500,000,000 sewage clean up”
1975 – “Executive committee seeks tender control”
1975 – “Quebec to pay half Montreal’s sewage nill”
1976 – “Economic woes threaten metro, sewage line work”
1976 – “Sewage plant, metro delayed”
1976 – “Is the Saint Lawrence an open sewer?”
1977 – “Province suspends sewage project”
1977 – “Sewage contracts stopped by Montreal”
1977 – “Costly sewer system simply shifts the problem”
1978 – “Back River Clean by 1986″
1978 – “Our sewage scandal: big plans but still little action”
1979 – “First phase completed of Montreal’s $1.2 billion sewage clean-up”
1979 – “$240 million sewer line awaits as city argues with suburbs”
1980 – “Time to take the plunger”
1983 – “Montreal wants Quebec action on huge southern sewer line”
1985 – “Dumping sewage into our rivers: there’s light at the end of the tunnel”
1985 – “Sewage pipe polluting 20km of river: experts”
1986 – “Boat will tour St. Lawrence sewer dumps”
1987 – “Push of button officially starts sewage plant”
1987 – “Montreal sewage plant called oversized, substandard”
1988 – “Not cleaned up yet”
1989 – “Waste spills into river after plant breakdown”
1990 – “Sewage plans running late, completion set back to ’94 by problems”

You get the idea…

Completion and Beyond

Finally, by 1998 all portions of the interceptor network had been completed and was being used to transfer most of the island’s sewage to the treatment facility. Being grossly over budget and over schedule, the original plan to introduce secondary treatment never came. Having already been considered obsolete during its conception, today’s plant is in dire need of upgrading if it’s to match the expectations of the 21st century. An announcement was made last year that Montreal would be seeking $200 million to help convert the plant into an ozonation treatment facility. The conversion would make it the largest city in the world to be using this more efficient process, but so far details have been vague and it’s questionable as to how and when all this might happen.

But despite the fact  the existing plant is behind the times in terms of treatment, it does do an adequate job of handling large amounts of wastewater. As well, the large-diameter interceptors can usually accommodate heavy rainfalls, which means a lower percentage of raw sewage ends up in the rivers when compared to other cities such as Toronto. As a result, the water around the island is a great deal cleaner than it used to be— enough so that the water is now deemed suitable for swimming.  While the number of recreational beaches on the island has dropped from over 20 in the 1940s to only two today, they can still be used. It’s better than nothing, I suppose.

Tell-tales suspended inside the Cote-St-Paul collector sewer.

One thing that’s been bugging me for the past couple of years is what purpose these suspended metal poles serve. They’re always found close to the top edge of a dropshaft that’s six or more feet in height.  Sometimes there are just one or two, or in the case of the sewer I was in last night, sometimes there’s a large batch of them. They’re always the same width and made with the same material. There are also eyelets at both ends of the pole: a large one at the top that fits through the fixture in the ceiling and a smaller one at the bottom. Both the old more recently built sewer systems in Montreal have them.

I once came across some blueprints from the City which referred to these poles as “tell-tales” but that doesn’t really “tell” me anything at all. They’re fairly light and swing back and forth easily if pushed. They’re not robust enough to serve as safety features, though they do come in handy for hanging onto if ever you want to step out close to the edge.  A chain or an actual railing would be much more practical if that’s what they were supposed to be used for.

They also don’t seem to be there to measure flow rates or water levels. The trash that accumulates on them gives some indication as to how high things might have been in the past, but wouldn’t provide the degree of accuracy to satisfy hydraulic engineers.

I know that tell-tales are used in sailing to help gauge wind direction and speed. I suppose that if there was a large enough air disturbance in the sewer, these poles might start start moving a little. Water falling down a dropshaft can definitely cause changes in air pressure which can often lead to problems, but I’d be surprised if the poles were hung up to indicate  that. I mean,  it also seems like a pretty low-rent way of doing it.

Anyone else out there have any ideas? Please don’t make me call the City’s Public Works department to get an answer for this one. You’re my only hope.

Update – As a friend of mine pointed out:

“I’m pretty sure the dangling things are warning devices similar to these. They’d indicate to anyone riding on top of a car an impending area of low clearance like an underpass. Underground, I suppose if a worker was disoriented and/or his flashlight died, a smack to the face from one these would prevent him from walking off a ledge.”

Works for me! Thanks, Rich.

So  “construction season” started a few days ago here in Montreal, and with it came the City’s announcement that they’ll be spending a record $608 million this year on road and underground infrastructure projects. According to a CBC report, roughly half of that amount will be spent on sewers, but I’m guessing this will mostly involve replacing watermains.  Journalists have this habit of referring to any underground pipe as being a sewer regardless of its function.

Construction crews have been busy ripping up the asphalt of the streets for awhile now, replacing the century-old iron mains with what looks to be  PVC pipe. It’s for this reason that portions of Notre Dame and Maisonneuve are currently closed off to general traffic. I’m sure overhauling some of  the older brick sewers is next on the agenda. Any piece of infrastructure that’s approaching 150 years old is bound to make any civil works engineer nervous. While I insist the old brick sewers are still in reasonably good shape, maybe the people who get paid to inspect them for a living have a better idea as to what’s on the verge of collapsing and what isn’t. Or maybe it’s just a make-work thing. Who knows?

In terms of what I do, construction and rehabilitation has its advantages and disadvantages.  On the positive side, it can help make things become more accessible. For eg:  when streets get closed off to traffic, it makes it much easier to get down inside of things, like a manhole that’s situated in the middle of the road.  The drawback, at least for myself,  is that with all this construction can come loss.  I’m always afraid that some of my favourite underground things in the city might someday get replaced using modern materials thus diminishing some of their charms.

The brick old collector sewer that runs below Rue McGill is a good example of this. A few years ago a pre-fab concrete pipe was inserted through much of its length. As you’ll see from the before and after photos, the end result isn’t quite as appealing to the eye.  I’ll admit, the fear of losing these sorts of things is pretty selfish.  I know that if anything did happen to break down or collapse, it would likely cause substantial problems for a large number of people— things that would make my own complaints about lost photo-ops seem rather petty in comparison. Then again, given the number of people who will likely be complaining to no end about traffic delays over the next few months, I probably shouldn’t feel too bad about it, should I?

Here’s a nice little find from the other night inside one of the older brick sewers running below Rue D’argenson in Point St. Charles. I had originally hoped to see something interesting where the sewer passes underneath the Lachine Canal and towards Rue St. Jacques. That ended up being a letdown with nothing but a dead-end chamber near the Canal’s edge not even worth photographing. Making our way in the opposite direction, we came across something uncommon for Montreal: a 150 meter section constructed using clay tile blocks.

It’s questionable as to why the transition occurs, but it’s possible that the brick sewer was initially laid during the late 1800s and the tile section  later during the early 1900s when the streets south of rue Centre began to fill in a bit more.  The sewer likely discharged into Riviere St-Pierre just ahead of the portion that had been converted into an open tailrace channel for the City’s Waterworks system. From that point everything would have been whisked away to Verdun and out to the St. Lawrence.

1913 map showing the area Point St. Charles formerly known as St. Gabriel. The sewer line discussed in this entry has been overlaid in red.

View this location in Google Maps.

During the beginning of the 1900s these pre-cast tile blocks had started to become a fashionable building material in some cities. It required less time and labour to install than brick which would require the setting of multiple layers to ensure both strength and leak resistance. These tile blocks aren’t at all very common here in Montreal. In fact, I’ve only seen it used in one other sewer in Hochelaga which my friends and I decided to call Ceramique Superfantastique. I’m sure there’s more of it to be found elsewhere around the city, but my guess is that the abundance of limestone on the island pretty much put an end to its use before it had a chance to take off. With limestone came concrete and when construction practices and manufacturing technologies made it a feasible building material, I’m sure Montreal was more than willing to take advantage of it.

Further inside the stretch of ceramic tile blocks, South of Rue Centre.

The rest of the sewer is fairly straightforward brickwork, but with a nice amount of calcite formations to give things a somewhat craggy, organic appearance. Beyond the tile blocks are a set of concrete beams, likely added later to help add reinforcement for the set of railway tracks above. Getting past this point would involve some serious crawling. Since none of us felt like getting a face full of sewer water, that would be as far as we’d go.

Crouched inside the brick-lined sewer underneath Rue St. Patrick.

When it comes to Montreal’s underground achievements, the Metro system tends to get a lot of the attention. Its sewer system, on the other hand— not so much. This isn’t really all that surprising. The subway system is something people both use and see all the time, and it’s also a fair bit more complicated than a network of tunnels designed to carry fluids. Still, in terms of tunneling achievements, the sewers built during the 1950s are worth taking a closer look at if only because they’re so often ignored.

Decarie Raimbault Collector during construction in 1958.

By the time ground was broken for the first metro line in 1962, close to a decade had already passed since tunnels just as large and as long had been dug out below the surface of the island. As the populations of communities like Ville St. Laurent and Ahuntsic exploded during the post-war boom, problems began to surface beneath the ground. The existing sewer system, with pipes no larger than seven feet in diameter, could no longer handle the demands being put on it. Floods were increasing as were the number of complaints from people getting fed up with sewage spilling out into the streets and basements.

Household waste was only part of the problem, though. The increase in pavement meant that stormwater previously absorbed by the soil was now running directly into the sewers via catch-basins and street gutters.

Flooded streets in Ville St. Laurent during the 1950s.

By the 1950s, it became obvious that a more substantial water and sewage disposal system was necessary. Actual treatment wasn’t yet an option, let alone on the table as a viable long-term strategy. Decades would pass before the island began work to reach that stage (see my entry on the island’s Interceptor System).

No, the idea here was simply to get everything into swift waters of Riviere Des Prairies or the St. Lawrence as efficiently as possible, where it would be whisked away from the island someone else to have to worry about.

Approximate paths of selection of sewers constructed during the 1950s, based on map data from 1962. (Click on lines for names)

The plan developed by the city’s Public Works Department under the direction of Lucien L’Allier consisted of several sewer systems to be constructed using a combination of cut and cover and deep-level tunelling techniques. Anticipating even further population growth, engineers decided to build them far larger than was necessary at the time.

Each of these collector systems were designed using a “horseshoe” shape built from cast-in-place concrete to a maximum height of 14.5 feet- essentially large enough for one of the city’s Metro cars to pass through. The combined costs for ten sewers built between 1952 and 1962 exceeded 50 million dollars.

Atlas Construction employee during an inspection of the Decarie Raimbault sewer in 1958.

Of note on the northern side of the island was the 13 km long Decarie Raimbault collector. It was built to transfer sewage from areas as far away as Outremont. The Raimbault portion of its name was taken from the sprawling creek system that once stood in its place.

Key Construction LTD workers inside a 14' cut-and-cover segment of the Meilleur Atlantique sewer, 1953.

Also in the same region, the Meilleur Atlantique collector was constructed to bring wastewater from as far South as Villeray to the shores of the community of Bordeaux near the Provincial detention centre.

Inside the Molson Collector with the tunnel boring machine nicknamed 'Jumbo' by the Atlas Construction Company.

On the South shore, the five mile long Molson collector (aka the Molson Creek Tunnel) was designed to deliver wastewater of Anjou, Maisonneuve and Rosemont into the St. Lawrence. Tunneling had initially started in 1937, but its construction was twice halted, once during WW2 and again during the late 1940s when the city decided to catch up on other sewer projects. It wouldn’t see completion until 1956.

Following Riviere St. Pierre

(All b&w photos from the City Archives of Montreal)