As it relates to environmental liability in Ontario, my colleagues and I have, for several years, discussed how to best protect our clients from the creeping environmental liability in the province. For example, two years ago we wrote an article in Environmental Science and Engineering Magazine, “Property owners need to be concerned about clean up liability following the Kawartha Lakes spill.” We called the Kawartha Lakes Decision a potential game changer. In our November...
Read MoreGroundwater Contamination: Proving Your Position
We are often asked by lawyers if we can determine when a chemical release occurred or help determine who is responsible for a release. This can be important in allocating responsibility for contaminated groundwater, especially when more than one party may have released the same chemical from the same or a nearby location. To gain some insight regarding how you might go about dating a release or understanding complex groundwater conditions, we are providing a short question...
Read MoreRecent Environmental Litigation and Fines
As we wind down the year, we wanted to share just a couple of recent news items relating to fines/penalties/litigation associated with environmental releases. $1.3 Million for PHC Contamination Proving who is responsible for contaminated soil/groundwater has been one of the mainstays for Dragun since 1988 (working directly with lawyers). The recent case regarding a site in Toronto was not so much of a who-is-responsible mystery as much as a case of neglect. The site from...
Read MoreEnvironmental Remediation Frustrations
When groundwater or soil remediation efforts are not going as planned, the culprit is typically a poorly designed Conceptual Site Model (CSM) or the lack of a CSM. Over the past 25 plus years of conducting peer reviews, Dragun has seen poorly designed CSMs or the lack of a CSM again and again. In fact, this is such an important issue that, over the past year, we have been providing a series of Environmental Minutes “Eight Keys to Successful Environmental Remediation.” In...
Read MoreEnvironmental Compliance and Aging Infrastructures
It’s quite a contrast how pollutants are viewed. A Thunder Bay Pulp Mill was fined $250,000 for, “…failing to ensure that effluent discharge and testing limits were maintained…” The company that was fined failed to ensure that the water was properly treated before discharge. Now, juxtapose the above non-compliance issue to the City of Montreal who was granted permission to discharge 8 billion litres of raw sewage into the St. Lawrence River. Though the discharge turned...
Read MoreEnvironmental Contamination – Are You Personally Liable?
The recent case heard by the Ontario Environmental Review Tribunal (ERT) involving Trichloroethylene (TCE) contamination in groundwater was not about contamination at all. As stated in the July 2015 ruling, “The existence of contamination in, on or under the Property and a plume of groundwater contamination in the immediate vicinity of the Property are not at issue in these proceedings…” If the issue of environmental contamination wasn’t about environmental contamination,...
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