Chapter V – Roads, sandpits and forest infrastructures
Division II – Roads
§5. Maintenance and closure of a road
Section 80
During the maintenance of roads, measures must be taken to prevent materials from the roadway surface and abrasives spread on the roadway in winter from covering the stabilized embankments and end up in an open peat bog with a pond, a marsh, a riparian swamp, a lake or a watercourse or over a width of 20 m, measured from the limit that separates the stand from the environment to be protected or, in the presence of a riparian ecotone, from the limit of the ecotone farthest from the environment to be protected.
Road maintenance work and the spreading of abrasives must be carried out so as to prevent sediments from being carried into the aquatic environments, wetlands and riparian environments. 
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Objectives
- To preserve the integrity of an aquatic, wetland or riparian environment
- To avoid carrying sediment into an aquatic, wetland or riparian environment
Additional information
The distance (20 m) is calculated based on the outermost limit of the watercourse’s ecotone. When present, the various open environments (open bog with pond, riparian shrub swamp) are part of the ecotone of the watercourse, lake or marsh. When maintaining roads, several things can be done to help prevent sediments from being carried into aquatic environments, wetlands and riparian environments. They include:
- Levelling the road regularly to eliminate ruts that may channel water towards an aquatic, wetland or riparian environment.
- Preventing the formation of small ridges along the roadway, except where they are planned, for example above a culvert and within 20 m of a watercourse.
- Avoiding transportation of granular material on the deck of a bridge.
- Avoiding spillage of materials on stabilized fill within 20 m of a structure across a watercourse.
- By cutting drainage channels into snowbanks before the spring thaw, to direct runoff water away from the roadway surface into areas located more than 20 m from aquatic, wetland or riparian environments.
