The owner of the shuttered pulp mill at Terrace Bay is off the hook for nearly $100,000 in penalties because government bureaucrats made a mistake in charging the company for releasing contaminants.
Details of the case came to light in a decision released last month by the Ontario Land Tribunal.
On March 1, 2024, about two months after AV Terrace Bay Inc. idled its equipment and laid off approximately 400 workers indefinitely, the Ministry of the Environment, Conservation and Parks issued an order to the company comprised of six penalties totalling $97,000.
The order described six contraventions of provincial environmental regulations, and alleged that total reduced sulphur emissions into the air had exceeded prescribed limits.
AV Terrace Bay filed an appeal with the Ontario Land Tribunal about six weeks after being notified of the penalties.
It submitted that the ministry had "erred in law, lacked jurisdiction, acted beyond its powers, and refused to exercise the powers, or to properly consider the preventative and mitigative measures of the appellant, in accordance with the Environmental Protection Act."
On April 19, the ministry issued a letter stating it had determined the order must be revoked because "there is no legal authority to issue the EP Order as the environmental penalties are not available for the contraventions which are the subject of the EP Order."
The ministry requested that the tribunal dismiss the company's appeal, thereby allowing the ministry to revoke the order.
According to the OLT's decision on the matter, the order referred to the pulp mill's contravention of a section of the EPA which only applies to discharges of contaminants to water or land, and not to discharges in the air.
"The (ministry) concluded that the environmental penalties were not available for the discharges at issue and there was no legal authority for the EP order," the tribunal noted.
It agreed the government had no right to issue the order or assign penalties because it failed to meet statutory requirements.
