Trucking company, director fined $140K for violating Environmental Protection Act
Gavel on desk. Isolated with dramatic lighting. (File photo/iStock/Marilyn Nieves)
A trucking company based in Alberta has been fined $125,000 for environmental offences in northwestern Ontario that date back to 2021.
V Trans Ltd. and its director Husanpreet Singh were convicted in Nipigon, Ont. in January for violations under the Environmental Protection Act (EPA).
“The convictions are for having control of a pollutant that was spilled and failing to notify the ministry, failing to comply with a ministry order by failing to remove all contamination from a site, failing to provide the ministry with a report prepared by a qualified professional and for failing in directorial duties by not notifying the ministry of a discharge of a contaminant, said the Ministry of Environment, Conservation and Parks in a news release.
In this case, the contaminant was diesel fuel.
The details
The offences took place between April 2021 and November 2022. The ministry investigated after a vehicle owned by V Trans Ltd. was involved in a motor vehicle accident on Highway 11 near Lake Helen.
V Trans Ltd. is a trucking company registered in Alberta and Singh was the sole company director in 2021.
“(The) accident resulted in a diesel spill that contaminated the soil and vegetation in the ditch and travelled through a culvert into nearby Lake Helen,” the release said.
“Lake Helen is a source of drinking water for the Lake Helen First Nation community.”
The lake is also home to a cold water fishery “that supports species that are particularly sensitive to hydrocarbon contamination.”
In May 2021 the ministry discovered the spill and contacted V Trans Ltd. advising them of their duty to report and clean up the spill.
“The defendants did not adequately contain the spill and did not clean up the contamination,” the release said.
Orders were issued in July 2021 requiring Singh and the company to clean up the spill and remediate the site. As part of the orders, a report describing this work was to be prepared by a “qualified professional” and submitted to the ministry – the defendants failed to comply by the deadline of the orders.
“Neither the company nor Mr. Singh took any action to complete spill clean-up or site remediation and have failed to respond to the ministry’s requests for updates,” the release said.
“The ministry’s environmental investigations and enforcement branch investigated and laid charges, which resulted in two convictions.”
In November 2022, the ministry retained a third party to remediate the spill and paid $84,004.58 using funds from the ministry’s Environmental Clean-Up Fund to complete the work.
Costly penalties
V Trans Ltd. and Singh were each convicted of three violations under the EPA and fined $125,000 and $15,000 respectively.
In addition to the fines, the company must pay a victim fine surcharge (VFS) of $31,250 and the director pay a VFS of $3,750, which they were given 15 days to pay.
In addition to these financial penalties, as part of the sentencing, the court ordered the defendants to pay $84,004.54 – the cost of the site remediation – to the Minister of Finance within 30 days of the conviction under Section 190.1 of the EPA.
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