Incident at Joly substation: Hydro-Québec provides an update

Hydro-Québec wishes to provide an update on the incident that took place on April 30 at Joly substation in Labelle, in the Hautes-Laurentides.

Hydro-Québec would like to emphasize that at no time was there a risk to the health and safety of neighboring residents.

At around 3:15 a.m., an outage occurred in the municipalities of Labelle and La Minerve, leaving more than 3,500 customers without power for a few hours. At around 3:40 a.m., the Hydro-Québec operator who had been dispatched to Joly substation noticed the break-in and the vandalism that caused a spill of 25,000 litres of insulating oil. Hydro-Québec quickly informed the Sûreté du Québec and the Ministère du Développement durable, de l’Environnement et de la Lutte aux changements climatiques (MDDELCC) of the incident.

As of 8:30 a.m. on April 30, about 4,500 litres of surface oil had been recovered. The excavation of contaminated soil began on Thursday, May 1. More than half of the contaminated soil will have been recovered by Friday, May 9, and work will be completed next week. Note that the spill was confined to Hydro-Québec property and did not affect any other land.

The Sûreté du Québec is currently investigating with the cooperation of Hydro-Québec’s industrial safety team.