Pollution fine will likely go unpaid

St. Lawrence Fluorspar will probably never pay the $30,000 fine it was given for polluting a nearby pond, but an Environment Canada official says it was worth pressing ahead with the case anyway. The now-defunct fluorspar producer fell into receivership last November citing poor metal markets and heavy debt burdens. Last month’s conviction in provincial court marked the second time in as many years that the subsidiary of British conglomerate Minworth Pc had been convicted of pollution charges. “This is the first time in this province, to my knowledge, that we’ve had a second offence under the Fisheries Act for this type of thing,” said Kevin Power of Environment Canada. “That’s why we went ahead with it, because it was sort of a precedent-breaking thing for us. There have been lots of first offences, but this is the first time that we have had occasion to bring a second offence to court.” In 1989, St. Lawrence was convicted on three counts of violating the pollution control provisions of the federal Fisheries Act and was fined $5,000 for each offence. The maximum fine allowable under the act is $100,000. Power said as far as he knows, the $30,000 fine to St. Lawrence for polluting fish habitat last summer was the most ever levied in Newfoundland. He agreed that now that the company has gone out of business and its assets have passed into the hands of receivers, it is unlikely the fine will be paid. “What our lawyer opined for us was that we’d basically be just like any other unsecured creditor,” Power said. But he added, by the time the company had closed, much of the legal legwork had already been done. “The reason that we went ahead, I guess, was twofold. Number one, most of our cost had already been displaced by that time, so in finishing it up and getting it over with, it wasn’t costing us much. And the other important factor was that although we may not be able to collect the fine, there’s still a general deterrent value that sends out a message to companies that this is the type of fine that may be imposed on such offences.” Although there was no actual fishkill involved with the case, Power said, the incident was still serious. Fish habitat was destroyed removing the potential for fish reproduction. The last known major fishkill connected to a mining operation occurred two years ago when cyanide from the now inactive Hope Brook Gold mine on the southwest coast of the island leaked into Cinq Cerf River killing hundreds of fish. The company was fined $10,000 in that incident.