Successful Investigation Results in Guilty Plea and $19,000 Directed to Environmental Conservation

QUESNEL, British Columbia - December 1, 2004 – The City of Quesnel appeared in B.C. Provincial Court today and pled guilty to depositing a deleterious substance, namely sewage, into water frequented by fish, contrary to section 36(3) of the Fisheries Act.

An agreed statement of facts was jointly filed by Crown and defense counsel.

The City of Quesnel was sentenced to a financial penalty totaling $20,000. This is comprised of a $1,000 fine and a payment of $19,000 for the purposes of conservation and protection of fish and fish habitat and/or promoting the proper management and control of fisheries or fish habitat in the Quesnel River watershed. The $19,000 payment will be split between Environment Canada’s Environmental Damages Fund and Fisheries and Oceans Canada.

Officers from Environment Canada and Fisheries and Oceans Canada conducted an investigation regarding a sewage spill that occurred in Quesnel, British Columbia. The investigation revealed that between November 1^st and 5^th, 2002, a sewage pipeline owned and operated by the City of Quesnel had failed and, as a result, sewage was released into the Quesnel River. The failure was caused by a defect in the suspension system that was used to suspend the pipeline from a bridge. Future situations of this sort can be prevented by having an inspection program in place, which could have prevented the failure, or a monitoring system, which may have detected it.

Created in 1995, the Environmental Damages Fund is rooted in the “polluter pays” principle, and courts can direct monies to the Fund to ensure that compensation is provided by convicted polluters for the damage that they cause to the environment. The Fund also gives the court a way to ensure that financial penalties imposed under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999 and the Fisheries Act are used for environmental protection purposes.

In the period between April 1, 2003 and March 31, 2004, more than $1.2 million was awarded to the fund for environmental restoration and other court directed benefits across the country.

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