Waste spreader snares court fines

Monday, September 20, 2010

by SUSAN MANN

A Southern Ontario company that operates a dairy farm and liquid waste collection business was fined more than $6,000 for not following Ministry of Environment rules when it spread non-agricultural materials on different sites in Waterloo Region last year.

J.P. Farms Inc. pleaded guilty on Aug. 23 in Provincial Offences Court to two violations. The company was fined $6,500 plus a 25 per cent victim surcharge. It was given one year to pay the fine.

Environment ministry spokesperson Kate Jordan says the company’s dairy farm is located in Waterloo Region. The company also collects liquid waste from various clients in Southern Ontario and it has approval to do that.

A call to a phone number listed for the company’s liquid waste removal business in Dundas reached a recording saying the number is not in service.

This isn’t the first time the company has come to the ministry’s attention.

Since 1998, the company has received five tickets and one other court conviction. Each ticket was less than $400 and involved failure to comply with certificates of approval.

A July 1998 court conviction resulted in a $1,000 fine and involved failing to ensure that stored waste material was only applied to the waste disposal site where the tank was located.

The first of J.P. Farms’ most recent violations was under the Nutrient Management Act for spreading non-agricultural materials on frozen ground on a site in North Dumfries Township (Waterloo Region) during the winter of 2009. Jordan says the company didn’t have approval to spread material on that site at the time.

The ministry’s investigations and enforcement branch inspected the site after receiving a complaint on Feb. 23, 2009.

Jordan says non-agricultural source material could be treated sewage waste, leaf or yard waste, fruit and vegetable peels, pulp or paper biosolids or “anything that provides organic conditioning for the soil.”  She didn’t know the exact material used in this case but she says the charge relates to the way the material was spread and not what material was used.

J.P. Farms Inc. has a number of certificates of approval from the ministry “and they all relate to allowing them to spread non-agricultural source material to sites as a fertilizer,” she says. The company has approvals to spread non-agricultural material on different sites in North Dumfries.

The second violation was under the Environmental Protection Act. The ministry’s investigators charged the company after it spread non-agricultural source material less than 100 metres from an off site residence, which violated a condition of its certificate of approval for that site. Jordan says the ministry approved the company’s application to spread non-agricultural material on this site in November 2009. The site was also in North Dumfries Township but is in a different location than the one involving the charge under the Nutrient Management Act.

After inspecting the site, the ministry determined “they were spreading too close to neighbouring properties,” Jordan says.

The Ontario government passed the Nutrient Management Act in 2002. It’s designed to spell out how materials containing nutrients are applied to land.

The ministry’s investigations and enforcement branch becomes involved in cases where there have either been serious problems or when people haven’t voluntarily complied with previous requests from environmental officers to follow their approval certificates or mitigate offsite effects.

The case of J.P Farms was referred to the investigations branch “because there was enough evidence to support they were acting out of compliance,” Jordan explains.

Since the charges were laid, the company has complied with all conditions in its approval certificates, she adds. BF