November 7, 2014 – Edmonton, Alberta – Environment Canada
This week, General Recycling Industries Ltd. (GRI) pleaded guilty in Alberta Provincial Court to one count of an offence under the Fisheries Act, related to the release of a deleterious substance into fish-bearing waters. The company was sentenced to a $75,000 penalty.
On April 28, 2012, Environment Canada received notification that “oily water” was being pumped from GRI property into a storm sewer. An Enforcement Officer attended the site and observed a four inch hose discharging industrial wastewater into the sewer, which flows into Mill Creek and subsequently the North Saskatchewan River. Both bodies of water are fish-bearing.
Sample analysis confirmed that the wastewater was deleterious to fish. An investigation into the incident was opened and the company was charged in 2013.
$73,000 of the penalty will be allocated to the Environmental Damages Fund.
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