2006 Environmental Compliance Reports

The links to the 2006 summaries are in the table below. Information is organized by the five ministry regional offices and by the types of discharges, which are:

• air discharge non-compliance events.
• municipal sewage treatment discharges that exceed legal requirements or the ministry’s policy for sewage treatment.
• industrial sewage discharge non-compliance events.
  
  

2006 Environmental Compliance Summaries Region Air Emissions Municipal Sewage Discharges Industrial Sewage Discharges Excel PDF Excel PDF Excel PDF Central Eastern Northern South Western West Central All Regions

SUMMARY AND/OR TRENDS

Wastewater Limit Exceedances by Sector for 2006

For each sector, the number of facilities with exceedances is given in brackets beside the sector’s name.  The nine facilities with the highest number of exceedances for 2006 are part of the Inorganic Chemical, Metal Mining, Miscellaneous and Municipal Sewage sectors.

Wastewater Limit Exceedances for 2006

The total number of wastewater limit exceedances recorded has decreased since 2005 and remains relatively lower then the earlier years (e.g. 35 % reduction from 2002 to 2006). 

Air Limit Exceedances by Sector for 2006

The top ten facilities with the highest number of exceedances for 2006 are part of the Pulp and Paper, Miscellaneous, Industrial Minerals and Electric Power sectors. 

To improve the ability to compare facility performance, opacity counts since 2004 indicate the number of days on which exceedances occurred.   Changes to regulatory opacity provisions, primarily the method of assessment resulted in some additional facilities being included in the 2006 report.   Secondly, because one source at a facility can trigger multiple monitoring station exceedances at the same time, the ministry adopted a new approach for reporting on these situations in 2006.  Exceedances at multiple locations, resulting from the same source at the same time would be reported once.  This is more consistent with the manner in which modeled results are accounted for as well.

Air Limit Exceedances by Number of Facilities and Contaminant Type for 2006

Air limit exceedances tend to involve a small number of facilities with more stringent requirements that may have numerous non-compliant discharges.  Some facilities may have exceeded the limit for more than one type of contaminant.

2006 Orders and Convictions related to the Posted Limit Exceedances

Environmental Officers use a case-by-case approach, detailed in the ministry’s “Compliance Policy:  Applying Abatement and Enforcement Tools” (Policy F-2) May 2007, to determine the appropriate response to any identified non-compliance based on potential human health effects or environmental impairment, and other factors such as the compliance history and response of the violator.

Possible abatement/enforcement responses include education, voluntary abatement, amending authorizing documents, orders, tickets and undertaking investigations that could result in a prosecution.

Interpretations of Trends and Summaries

Some facts to keep in mind when reading the trends and summaries:

• Exceedance counts can have different meanings, e.g. a limit may be based on 30 minute or annual average, an air dispersion model exceedance is counted once.
• An order issued by the ministry or a ministry investigation are likely in response to a number of exceedances.