The Minister’s Requirement for Fees sets out the fees that the MOE may charge for its review of Environmental Compliance Approval (ECA) applications. These fees can run into the thousands of dollars depending on what the MOE is asked to review. For example, review of combustion equipment costs $400, review of an effluent quality criteria assessment for sewage, industrial wastewater or leachate treatment plans costs $6000 and, at the top end, technical review of a site where hazardous or liquid waste would be disposed of by landfilling costs $60,000.
There is one small exemption:
An applicant is exempted from these fees if they must amend their approval to permit an action required by the Director. Specifically, the fees do not apply “where an applicant requests the Director to amend an environmental compliance approval as a result of action that the applicant has been required to take by the Director pursuant to a condition contained in the approval.”
An applicant who is seeking an ECA or an amended ECA, after being charged with an offence under the EPA, but before sentencing, cannot take advantage of the exemption. Nor would the exemption apply to amendment applications that are required by a Provincial Officer’s or Director’s Order, because these are not requirements “pursuant to a condition contained in the approval”.
By Meredith James and Dianne Saxe