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Regulating Methane in Canada
With the COP 21 Paris Climate Change Conference as the backdrop, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and U.S. President Barack Obama have agreed to focus on the reduction of methane emissions from the oil and gas sector. According to a report in the Globe and Mail, “The federal government will impose regulations to cut methane emissions in the oil and gas industry by as much as 45 per cent as part of a bilateral climate deal announced Thursday during Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s official visit to Washington.” Using 2012 as the base...
read moreCanada’s 2016 Budget and the Environment
Like many of you, I have been reviewing the Canadian 2016 Budget but focusing on how it might impact the “environmental world.” I focused my attention on reviewing Chapter 4 – A Clean Growth Economy. Much of the focus seems to be on somewhat esoteric issues, such as the “green economy” and the “low-carbon economy,” which are difficult to quantify, at least currently. Environmental Focus in Budget However, within Chapter 4 is “Securing a Cleaner, More Sustainable Environment.” The 2016 budget, “…proposes to provide $3.4 billion over five...
read moreJoint Environmental Enforcements and Investigations
Anyone involved in health and safety or environmental protection knows how diligent you must be to guard against accidents. These accidents can lead to fines, penalties, and, in some cases, can have tragic consequences. These unfortunate consequences were highlighted in some recent news stories. Joint Enforcement on Tragic Explosion In late January 2016, it was announced that a very substantial joint prosecution (Under the Occupational Safety and Health Act and the Environmental Protection Act) resulted in an equally-substantial fine. Sunrise...
read more“Stuff” Happens: How to Avoid Environmental Outrage
Nearly 30 years ago, Environmental Risk-Communication Expert, Dr. Peter Sandman wrote, “If you make a list of environmental risks in order of how many people they kill each year, then list them again in order of how alarming they are to the general public, the two lists will be very different.” This is far from an apples-to-apples comparison (different time frame, different countries, subjective search terms, and different issues, to name a few), but they help illustrate Dr. Sandman’s point regarding the number of fatalities associated with...
read morePERC and TCE Releases
A couple of common bad environmental actors (i.e., toxic chemicals) have been in the news again recently. One news story should be a heads up for a specific industry, and the other news story is about an ongoing concern for residents of a small community. Dry Cleaner Fined About a year and a half ago, my colleague, Andrew Tymec, P.Eng., wrote a blog about enforcement actions at dry cleaners across Canada. In the blog, Andrew said, in part, “If you have dry-cleaning operations in Canada, you would do well to pay attention to this (enforcement...
read more“Innocence” When It Comes to Environmental Liability Means Nothing
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 6th blog (trend on personal liability), we also discussed the...
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 and answer session below with three of our senior staff with...
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 where the contamination was emanating stored large volumes of waste...
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 these minutes, we go into detail regarding CSMs, but in very general...
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 out to be only 4.9 billion litres, it was, nonetheless, an unappealing...
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