Road access and available energy

Means of transport

Highway network:

Trucking is the most commonly used means of transport in North America. Salaberry-de-Valleyfield has managed to attract its fair share of trucking companies, due in large part to its favourable geographic location and growing businesses.

Highway networks play a significant role in any region’s economical appeal and, Salaberry-de-Valleyfield is privileged enough to boast a most highly efficient one. Part of Salaberry-de-Valleyfield highway network includes Highway 30 (expected to be fully completed in 2011) which serves as a key bypass (south beltway) to the City of Montréal as well as the Trans-Canada Highway, the highway most commonly used by trucks in Canada.

What is also notable is that Salaberry-de-Valleyfield is located a mere 30 minutes from New York State one of the major economic hubs in the northeastern United States. Note that there are over 80 million Québec, Canadian and American consumers located within a 800-kilometer radius surrounding Salaberry-de-Valleyfield.

Railway network:

Salaberry-de-Valleyfield is mainly serviced directly by the Canadian National and CSXT networks, while also taking advantage of the proximity of the Canadian Pacific network. The City is therefore ideally located within the North American railway network. A handling point located directly in Salaberry-de-Valleyfield means the city can avoid busy Montréal tracks and thereby enjoy better delivery deadlines. What’s more, the Salaberry-de-Valleyfield region is the only place in Canada where the CSXT network travels directly onto Canadian soil the latter services the territory of the Beauharnois-Salaberry Regional County Municipality (RCM) up until its final stop located east of the Beauharnois hydroelectric power plant.  

Given Salaberry-de-Valleyfield’s prime location and transport assets, destinations in the eastern and western parts of the country as well as those in the United States are all within arm’s reach. Note also that Salaberry-de-Valleyfield’s main industrial park (Perron industrial and harbour Front Park) is directly serviced by this railway network.

Port facilities:

Thanks to its deep water port facilities located on the Saint-Lawrence Seaway, Salaberry-de-Valleyfield’s doors are truly open to the world.

The port caters mainly to ships from the Great Lakes, but also accommodates ocean liners. It is a well-known port of call for many translantic liners coming from or heading towards trade centres in South America, Europe and Africa. The port also offers a variety of services including warehousing of general cargo, liquid bulk or dry bulk, thereby ensuring its uniqueness as the only municipal port in all of Canada. The driving force behind the port is undisputedly its team of highly productive workers, able to load and unload ships arriving to and departing from the port with the utmost efficiency.

Airports:

Thanks to its ideal location, Salaberry-de-Valleyfield enjoys the unparalleled benefits of nearby private and public airports. Montréal’s Pierre-Elliott-Trudeau international airport is located in Dorval, a mere 48 km (30 miles) from Salaberry-de-Valleyfield, and is truly a hub airport for the transportation of domestic, transborder and international passengers. The airport offers cargo and passenger services for a multitude of Canadian and American destinations. What’s more, Pierre-Elliott-Trudeau airport ensures a connection with all destinations through most of its American and international airlines.

Montréal’s Mirabel airport, located just 90 km (56 miles) from Salaberry-de-Valleyfield was developed as an industrial and cargo airport. It has become the hub airport for commercial air transport in Québec. Mirabel airport also offers stopover warehousing services free of customs charges.

Mirabel and Pierre-Elliott-Trudeau Montréal’s international airports are closer to Europe than any other major airport on the entire North American continent. The Montréal airport depends on the collaboration of its 600 employees. Some 52 passenger aircraft and 25 cargo aircraft connect Montréal to numerous major international airports, towards key urban centers in Canada, the U.S., Europe, Asia, the Middle East and Latin America. In 2004, 10.3 million passengers and 252,000 metric tons of merchandise were transported through Montréal’s Pierre-Elliott-Trudeau and Mirabel airports. Some 275 active airport establishments generate a total of 50,000 direct, indirect and spin-off jobs.

Other airports located near Salaberry-de-Valleyfield:

The surrounding Salaberry-de-Valleyfield region also boasts a number of important private airports including the Valleyfield municipal airport, located 10 minutes from downtown, as well as the Les Cèdres airport and the Viking and Trans-Québec helicopter services.

Available energy

Electrical power Québec’s greatest natural and energy resource continues to remain relatively inexpensive. Hydro-Québec produces and distributes electrical power for all of Québec and offers “high power” rates to industries who consume large quantities of electricity these particular rates are among the lowest in North America. They are, in fact, much lower than those offered in larger American cities such as Detroit, Chicago and New York.

One of the major hydroelectrical plants the Beauharnois hydroelectrical power plant is located just a few kilometers east of Salaberry-de-Valleyfield. This particular hydroelectrical plant is considered a “stream line” plant and was commissioned from 1932 to 1961. Its reservoir is constituted of 233 sq. km. of the Beauharnois Canal and Lake Saint Francis. The power plant includes 38 groups of alternator turbines lined up over one kilometer and has an installed capacity of me 658 MW.

Salaberry-de-Valleyfield’s Perron industrial and harbour front park alone benefits from a hydroelectrical potential of 256 megawatts. Two 750-kilovolt lines run through the region, offering a ring network with a capacity of 120 kV and 25 kV in addition to its regular services. These two lines provide a reliable power supply while keeping the risk of power failures resulting from line breakage to a minimum.

Hydroelectric power procures many advantages to businesses setting up in the Salaberry-de-Valleyfield region. In fact, Hydro-Québec has put forth a variety of “Business” solutions adapted to the needs of “small, medium and big businesses” with particular hydroelectric needs. These solutions offer:

• clean and highly abundant energy

• research programs targeting the use of high technology

• government programs to help stabilize production costs for high energy users

• programs aimed at diminishing costs for new industries.

Natural Gas:

There are 39 km (24 miles) of natural gas lines which cross through the City of Salaberry-de-Valleyfield. This gas is routed directly from the source through the gas line. A hi-flow gas supply system services all of the city’s industrial zones.

Characteristics of the main natural gas supply system in industrial park No.2:

Water supply:

Salaberry-de-Valleyfield’s geographic location allows for an almost inexhaustible use of drinking water and untreated water within proximity of the Saint-Lawrence River.

Drinking water:

Source	Baie Saint-François
Treatment	Filtration, chlorination and ozonation
Distribution	All of the city’s industrial parks
Quality	Excellent
Pressure	200 kg/cm2 (70 lb/in2)
Capacity	45,500,000 litres/day (10,000,000 gal/day)

Untreated water (industrial, cooling):

Other characteristics:

Many of the businesses located in Salaberry-de-Valleyfield’s Perron industrial and harbour front park generate by-products due to a lack of post-production use. One particular company, for example, has large quantities of hydrogen. It is certainly possible for these by-products to be reused. As well, energy surpluses such as hot water and vapor could be put to good use by neighboring companies requiring these energy sources.