A St. John's, Newfoundland provincial court judge has ordered Vale Newfoundland and Labrador to pay $30,000 in penalties after the company pleaded guilty to sending waste harmful to fish into the Anaktalak Bay, in Labrador, during a two-day period in 2013.
The violation relates to a March 2013 incident where untreated and acutely lethal effluent was discharged from the Voisey's Bay mine into the Anaktalak Bay.
Of the total penalty, $25,000 will be directed to the federal government's Environmental Damages Fund.
Treated process water from the mill located at Vale's Voisey's Bay mine is pumped through a pipeline that is approximately 10 kilometres long and is discharged into Edwards Cove in Anaktalak Bay.
On March 27, 2013, Vale notified Environment and Climate Change Canada that untreated effluent had been released from its Voisey's Bay mine into Anaktalak Bay.
Environment and Climate Change Canada enforcement officers subsequently completed an investigation, determined the effluent was acutely lethal and charged Vale in October 2014.
Created in 1995, the Environmental Damages Fund follows the “polluter pays principle” and helps ensure that polluters take responsibility for their actions. The fund provides a mechanism to direct pollution-related fines, court orders, and voluntary payments to priority projects that will benefit the environment.
