1895
The beginning of quarry operations in Montreal North. The quarry belonged to National Quarry until 1947.
1947
The Miron brothers bought the quarry and began operations, which also included a cement plant. Standing 125 metres high, the two red and white smokestacks from the cement kiln next to the quarry were an important landmark for the people of Montreal, but for local residents they were also a source of pollution. The stacks were part of the burning process that transformed the stone into cement powder. The Miron quarry supplied the construction industry with sand, crushed stone, asphalt, concrete delivery hoses, and cement blocks. In the beginning, they quarried limestone. Workers crushed the rock to remove the stone and turn it into cement for use in the construction of downtown Montreal buildings.
1950
By 1950, more than two hundred people were employed quarrying the stone. They felt an enormous sense of satisfaction in helping to build the city. Although the quarry caused hardship for neighbourhood residents, it's clear that for many people at the time, working for Miron was a source of pride.
"That's the hole Montreal is coming out of. The train station, Sainte-Justine Hospital, the St. Lawrence Seaway, Place Ville-Marie and Complex Desjardins... That's our cement," is how Louis and Jacques tell it. They worked 26 and 11 years respectively at Miron (La Presse, June 9 1984).
1963
Around noon on March 25, a poorly executed explosion of dynamite sent stone and gravel flying 500 feet, landing as far away as 6th and 7th Avenues. People tell the story of a little girl who saw one of the stones come out of nowhere and shatter the balcony railings and two windows of her family's home on 7th Avenue.
In October, after several residents complained about the area around the Miron quarry, councillor Rolland Larivière, police head Thomas Hall, and a handful of citizens went to the site and saw that work was being done there at night, despite municipal bylaws designed to protect the residents' peace and quiet. In November, Miron obtained a permit allowing it to operate at night. Angry residents were told the City had given Miron a special permit so it could fulfil its contracts to builders working on the site of Expo 67. The residents continued to protest, however, and the City was frequently called on to intervene.
1964
A second badly executed explosion sent more stones flying into the air above the St-Michel residential neighbourhood. One of the largest stones went up some 1,000 feet, before coming down on a sidewalk on 40th Avenue, and piercing a wrought-iron railing to end up on the garage door of councillor Léopold Lavoie, a fierce opponent of dynamiting in the quarry. Miraculously, none of the 700 children in a nearby park were injured.
1965
On July 8, a third badly controlled explosion caused damages to a nearby home. The grumbling continued among the St-Michel neighbourhood residents.
To show its good faith, Miron issued a statement on the measures it would introduce to ensure peace and quiet for local residents. It ran in the
St-Michel newspaper on July 6.
In order to prove to the people of St-Michel that the company intends to collaborate with them to ensure the full comfort to which they are entitled, the management of MIRON COMPANY LTD. has decided to go forward with a not inconsiderable expansion project.
Following is a summary, since it would be rather difficult for us to go into all the details of the new project here, of what the MIRON expansion project will cover: Cessation of operations at the five crushers located near homes and their total replacement by crushers located in the middle of the quarry; The building of closed conveyors to move the crushed stone; A decrease in the number of internal truck roads and the paving of those that remain open; The removal of the piles of crushed stone spread across the area; The paving of the large parking area to eliminate dust (completed); Installation of the best dust-removal system in the world; Spraying, from now until the project is complete, by two water-trucks of the MIRON property to keep the dust down; An increase, in so doing, in the amount of taxes payable to the City of St-Michel and outstanding cooperation in the economic growth of our city; And finally, let us be clear about this, a doubtlessly significant number of new jobs - preferably in St-Michel - resulting from this fabulous expansion project;
This is a brief summary, if you will, of the way in which MIRON's management intends to prove, once again, that they are putting every effort into the notion of collaboration with everyone. We believe that the entire population of St-Michel will be glad to hear such good news.
What we are doing, if we can look at things objectively, is a fine example of cooperation by the largest company in St-Michel. (Le St-Michel, 6 July 1965, p.1)
Given these good intentions, the municipality had no choice but to approve the company's expansion project.
1966
The rain of stones continued: some forty homes were damaged when stones weighing up to 30 pounds each fell onto the area bordered by 35th Street, Boulevard St-Michel , 40th Street and 15th Avenue. Two people were injured. The mayor asked an engineer to investigate. For Miron, the conclusions were damning. Referring to the most recent incident, the engineer stated: "It was foreseeable and it could happen again."
1969
In April 1969, municipal councillors Ernest Roussille, Nick Ciamarra and Aimé Sauvé met with the president of Miron Co. Ltd. to discuss how to limit the rock bursts from dynamiting. The result: the City issued new bylaws directed at the quarry. But the bylaws had little effect on Miron, whose next move was to pile up mountains of stone and sand barely 20 feet away from the backyards of homes on Iberville Street.
The Miron company turned part of the quarry into a landfill site for household waste. From 1968 to 1988, the Miron dump prospered, and millions of tons of garbage of every kind were buried there (the Ville de Montréal continued the practice until May 2000). The new landfill created a violent stench and attracted rats, which inspectors from the Ville de Montréal Health Department tried to control.
Various groups of demonstrators were formed.
1971
The Montreal Urban Community (CUM) annonced that it would sue Miron for having exceeded, on numerous occasions, the standards for particulate matter. The company faced a fine of $100.
In November, an agreement was reached between Montreal and Miron designed to improve the residents' quality of life. Miron would build a seven-foot fence around its site, and the city would set up an industrial buffer zone between the quarry and the neighbourhood.
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