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End of an era of secrecy: Ontario’s illegal water polluters revealed
TORONTO – After years of government secrecy and drawn out legal battles over information on polluters, Sierra Legal Defence Fund applauds Ontario’s Ministry of Environment for unveiling its long awaited website today providing the public with information concerning provincial water pollution laws.
For the first time in seven years, the Government of Ontario will be providing full, detailed information on violations of water pollution laws by Ontario’s municipal and industrial facilities. The information provided through the website identifies polluting facilities and the quantity and type of violations that have occurred.
“This has been a long hard fought battle for Ontarians right to know who is illegally polluting in their community,” said Dr. Elaine MacDonald, Staff Scientist at Sierra Legal. “This is a first step in what we hope will be an era of greater government transparency with respect to environmental issues.”
Using freedom of information laws, Sierra Legal has fought each year since 1997 to make this type of information on pollution violations publicly available. Initially the government denied public access to the information and Sierra Legal was forced to appeal to Ontario’s Information and Privacy Commissioner.
Yet even after a string of precedent setting decisions from the Privacy Commissioner, each year Sierra Legal was still forced to wait for up to nine months to get the information. In the absence of government reporting, Sierra Legal analyzed and provided this information to the public by publishing non-compliance reports each year.
Sierra Legal reports on pollution violations from 1996 to 2003 exposed shocking levels of non-compliance with Ontario’s pollution laws with little or no enforcement by the MOE. Only after the Walkerton tragedy in the year 2000—a wake-up call to government—did the situation start to improve. Wastewater pollution violations peaked around 3000 per year in 1998 and 1999 and dropped steadily to about 1000 violations in 2003.
Although improvements to Ontario’s monitoring and enforcement of its water pollution laws are still needed, it is hoped that the recently proclaimed Bill 133, the “Spills Bill”, will cause violations to decrease further.
“This information will make it easier to identify the laggards and prompt corrective action,” said Sierra Legal lawyer Robert Wright. “This will level the playing field for those companies who have made efforts to implement strong environment management plans.”
The MOE Environmental Compliance website can be accessed at: http://www.ene.gov.on.ca/envision/compliance/compliance.htm
For further information please contact:
Dr. Elaine MacDonald, Staff Scientist (416) 368-7533 ext. 27