by Daniel Allard

Trade projects emerge everywhere and in the absence of effective regulations on fresh water export in Québec, expectations rise and the debate is becoming incisive. An important bottler has even threatened to withhold a major investment if the government of Québec decided to nationalize the underground waters of its territory. For the time being, these waters belong to the owners of the soil beneath which the waters run, are stagnant or dormant!

The think tank created by the businessman Jean Coutu to follow-up on his proposal and thoroughly coordinated by his brother Richard has already held half a dozen meetings and gathered more than 30 interested parties on this issue. It has more importantly brought to light an impressive number of projects that all aim at a better commercialization of Québec's water. Whether credible or unusual, these projects have also indirectly revealed the body of expertise from which the region of Québec benefits.

This great social debate which currently shakes Québec will reach a peak at Montréal's Palais des Congrès from December 10 to 12. In fact, during the Symposium on Water Management in Québec, organized by the INRS (Institut national de recherche scientifique)-EAU, a major step in the government process will be crossed. If a consensus is reached, the government will thereafter implement new regulations and business people will finally see more clearly how to manage this immense trade opportunity.

In the region of Québec, all options seem opened. With major players such as the Davie Industries shipyard in Lévis and the Ultramar refinery located nearby on the South Shore, the region is on top of the list of a possible destiny that could make Quebecers become the Arabs of water in a more or less immediate future.

PLACE YOUR BID ON A QUEBEC-ARABIA OF WATER

As soon as 2005 ? In 2010 or not before 2025 ? The stakes are opened. One thing is sure though : considering Québec's fresh water reserve and the demographic and environmental changes occuring on the planet, Québec's fresh water will one day become very valuable, perhaps even more than petroleum today.

DISTRIBUTION OF FRESH WATER ON THE SURFACE IN CERTAIN PARTS OF THE GLOBE

The difficulty of properly assessing real demand for fresh water over time and the slow improvement of salt water desalting technologies have dashed any enthusiasm. With desalting plants that require enormous investments (1 to 2 US $/cubic meter) to produce desalted water, Ultramar and the Davie shipyard are thinking twice before launching pilot projects of oil tanker conversion.

"Last year, along with Mr. Coutu, we stated that we had found a means, with a membrane system, to transform an oil tanker so it could ship water as well. We have been at a standstill ever since ", the President of Davie Industries, J. Arthur Gélinas, said last Fall.

For the time being, Davie is taking out a patent for its invention and awaits coming events. For its part, the Québec government amended its naval policy last July in order to include a new tax-break for the constructing or transforming of the first three prototype ships up to 20 % of the total cost of these ships. Despite its efforts, Davie Industries will never be a leader in this venture. "I want to reiterate that we have no intention of playing a role in the marketing of water in Québec. We are shipbuilders who attempt to offer solutions to transportation, nothing more ", pointed out Mr. Gélinas.

A FEW COMPARISONS ON THE PRIME COST OF WATER (IN CAN $/METRIC CUBE)

Although it always welcomes any solution that would diminish the transportation cost of its crude oil and has a nose for business, Ultramar remains cautious. Its representative at the Coutu Group meetings has confirmed that the company is working on a project very different from the Davie solution and that would require much less investing. "We want to profit from the ballast of double-bottomed ships, therefore of the water used by an oil tanker, to valorize this current activity. We have no wish to pump the streams of Québec ", explains Gilles De Bellefeuille, engineer at the Saint-Romuald refinery. He wants to make the river's water transported overseas by an oil tanker profitable by selling it on delivery as industrial or farming water. This concept is the work of Pierre Naud-Labrie, quay supervisor for Ultramar, and will further be developed internally along with the refinery's freighters. "And we are not expecting any government aid ", added the engineer.

Unlike Ultramar, another player in the region of Québec is in a hurry. L'Industrielle de l'Environnement, an enterprise created 2 years ago (among others by the INRS-EAU also established in Quebec) and specialized in environmental issues wants to take over the Coutu Committee and speed things up. Missions in the Middle East by one of the enterprise's representative have already established the groundworks of possible partnerships. L'Industrielle's managers would like the government to rapidly finance the next steps that would lead to real feasibility studies.

THE 'AQUAROADERS' OF AQUAROUTE

While many experts are raising questions on the global problematic of water management in Québec, a discrete engineer-shipbuilder of Québec City is working on his "Aquaroaders " of the future. Before the ink will dry up on the synthesis and conclusions of the December Symposium in Montréal, he will have finished the freighting of its first water export to clients that remain unknown for the moment.

President of Navtech, a Québec-based shipbuilding firm, Paul E. Barbeau also joined the Coutu think tank for a few meetings. The businessman has now returned to his office on Côte de la Montagne and started to work. The window of his seventh floor office superbly overlooks the St-Lawrence river on which Mr. Barbeau probably sees the specially designed ships he has in mind. "No name refers to a ship that uniquely transports water. I have created one though ", he says with a smile, "Aquaroaders ".

Has he envisioned the constructing of such ships ? Not at all ! Surely not on the short or mid-term. His company, Aquaroute, already exists and will rather freight some ships that will transport huge quantities of loose fresh water.

"With the technology I have perfected, it will be an easy task to modify existing ships to enable them to transport between 4 000 to 20 000 tons of high quality fresh water with each shipment ", adds Mr. Barbeau. Compelling himself to secrecy with his three other associates in Aquaroute - "All Quebecers ", says he - as well as to the identity of the four serious clients with whom he negotiates, P.E. Barbeau says that a first AQUANADA water delivery will be shipped before Christmas 97 and there will be freights in 1998 with redesigned ships.

"Our first client will receive bottles. This is exceptional and only done to accommodate him since it is important to answer the demand ", admits Barbeau who knows that he will be many lengths ahead of any competitor and strategically advantaged in what is to be considered one of the most promising market for the future.

The day where river lovers will see "Aquaroaders " bearing the colors of Aquaroute cruise the waters of the St-Lawrence has not come yet. Nevertheless, in the first months of 1998, the new Québec company will have made its first deliveries on foreign markets and, in a sense, fulfilled Jean Coutu's dream.

Aquaroute's technology is inventive and will permit loose transportation of huge quantities of non treated and high quality fresh water. The company will never sell its clients water treated by the major cities' treating plants. Aquaroute will only take its water from a natural spring. What does the entrepreneur think of the government's willingness to tax the water taken from the spring?

HOW TO REGULATE ?

"I have been preparing this dossier for two years and have always sustained that each step must be properly structured. Aquaroute is committed not to take more than 80 % of the natural renewal capacity of the spring. The State could levy taxes, but this should be left to cities with a reasonable tax level since to my knowledge none of our competitors pay any taxes when using the resource", argues Paul Barbeau.

Apart from the projects emerging from the region of Québec, other initiatives are currently debated. For instance, there is the 15 M$ project supported by the mayor of Sept-Iles and the more modest project Eaux Vives Harricana inc. of Roger Périgny in Abitibi. In short, all parts of Québec are boiling. But since water is a strategic natural resource that is deemed essential by the population, the government of Québec will in the end have the last word over the methods of exploitation.

As stipulated in the Reference Document of the Symposium organized by the INRS-EAU :

In Québec, many await clear answers. Furthermore, a majority hope for a kind of public involvement, a sort of choice of society to insure that their dream does not go overboard !