Town of Kirkland Lake fined re late landfill plan
The Town of Kirkland Lake pleaded guilty to one violation under the Environmental Protection Act for failing to comply with a Certificate of Approval relating to the submission of a Design and Operation Plan with a number of requirements regarding the Kirkland Lake Landfill Site. It was fine…
View the post titled Town of Kirkland Lake fined re late landfill planDo Pollution Exclusion clauses work?
Will pollution exclusion clauses stand up in commercial general liability insurance policies? The Ontario Court of Appeal says yes, when they are directed at activities likely to cause traditional soil and water pollution. See ING Insurance Company of Canada v. Miracle (Mohawk Imperial Sales…
View the post titled Do Pollution Exclusion clauses work?Pharmaceuticals, drinking water, and liability
The better our detection ability becomes, the more things we find in the water. One important group of those things is pharmaceuticals and their metabolites. Pharmaceuticals are specifically designed to affect the bodies, brains and behaviour of humans and other animals, at comparatively low…
View the post titled Pharmaceuticals, drinking water, and liabilityNuclear Liability caps in Japan
Japan has nuclear liability caps much higher than those in Canada. Under the Law on Compensation for Nuclear Damage, plant operator liability is exclusive and absolute, and power plant operators must provide a ‘financial security amount’ of ¥120 billion ($1.2 billion), 16 times t…
View the post titled Nuclear Liability caps in JapanNuclear Liability cap in Canada
As Japan battles to prevent nuclear catastrophe at Fukushima, with the assistance of the International Atomic Energy Agency, anxious eyes are turning to nuclear safety in other countries. Canadian reactors boast a relatively safe design, but still require cooling, and are therefore vulnerab…
View the post titled Nuclear Liability cap in CanadaWho pays for basement flooding?
It will likely be increasingly difficult for home and business owners to find anyone willing to pay for basement flooding. According to the insurers’ Institute for Catastrophic Loss Reduction, “basement flooding is one of the biggest challenges facing homeowners, municipal governments…
View the post titled Who pays for basement flooding?Everyone liable for PCB-contaminated oil
A British Columbia used oil company has successfully sued the owner of a PCB transformer, and everyone down a contractual chain, for failing to warn them that the oil was almost pure PCBs. It was awarded $776,033.75.
View the post titled Everyone liable for PCB-contaminated oilModel contract for engineers and their clients
We are frequently consulted on disputes over the wording of contracts between environmental engineers and their clients. Some contracts are just badly drafted, so it’s hard to know what they mean. Others are clearly drafted, but don’t describe what the client was promised. Some …
View the post titled Model contract for engineers and their clientsHungarian sludge spill and our tailings ponds
The Hungarian sludge spill disaster is just another reminder of the large scale havoc and devastation that industrial sludge impoundments can create. Every few years we read about another one. On April 25, 1998, a tailings dam failure of the Los Frailes lead-zinc mine at Aznalcóllar near Sev…
View the post titled Hungarian sludge spill and our tailings pondsFactory farms- who controls the pollution?
Who is responsible for pollution from contract farms: the family farm, or the multi-national food company who controls everything that they do? A US case has set an important precedent on the liability of the food companies. In Assateague Coastkeeper v Hudson et al, an environmental group su…
View the post titled Factory farms- who controls the pollution?Receive Blog Posts
By subscribing to our blog, you will receive an email when a new post is added. You can unsubscribe at any time by sending an email to us at [email protected] with the word “unsubscribe” in the subject line.