The Province has released its quarterly environmental enforcement summaries for the third and fourth quarters of 2018 to provide transparency on action taken against polluters in British Columbia. 

The summaries detail a total of 1,728 environmental enforcement actions taken by the provincial government during this time period, along with $885,907 in associated penalties and fines.

In total, the Province issued 62 orders, 139 administrative sanctions, 31 court convictions, 14 administrative penalties and 2,412 violation tickets totalling $1,092,465 in fines in 2018. The most frequently contravened acts were the Wildlife Act with 1,040 violations, the Fisheries Act (Canada) with 375 violations and the Off-Road Vehicle Act with 344 violations.

To date, nearly 33,000 enforcement actions have been published in the summary and entered into the ministry’s environmental violations database.

Notable enforcement actions, for this period, include:

• Radium Resort Group Ltd. was fined $200,000 for introducing waste-causing pollution and open burning of prohibited construction materials. Of that total, $190,000 was directed to Habitat Conservation Trust Fund.
• Mackenzie Pulp Mill Corporation received penalties of $81,100 for failure to maintain a recovery boiler and failing to comply with permit limits for bivalent sulphur compounds and particulate matter.
• Canadian Pacific Railway Limited received a penalty for $31,500 for failure to comply with an effluent discharge permit for its railyard in Golden.
• Savage Creek Golf Course Ltd. received a penalty of $70,000 for significantly exceeding fill-level maximums, while developing an 18-hole Richmond golf course expansion in the Agricultural Land Reserve.

In addition, B.C. conservation officers issued 95 violation tickets related to activities that could spark a wildfire in the third quarter of 2018. The Province has taken a strong stance to protect forests and communities in the face of one of the worst fire seasons in British Columbia’s history, with more than 1.3 million hectares burned. Fines for these violations were $1,150 each and totalled $108,900 during this same period.

To view the full quarterly environmental enforcement summary, visit: https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/environment/research-monitoring-reporting/reporting/environmental-enforcement-reporting