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News Release

For immediate release
October 3, 2003

PRISON SENTENCE, FINES TOTALING $37,000 HANDED DOWN
IN CASE INVOLVING OTTAWA-AREA AUTO PARTS OPERATION

OTTAWA - Daher Wanna, the owner of 31 Auto Parts in Osgoode Township, has been sentenced to three months in jail and fined $4,000 after being found guilty of discharging pollutants, illegal waste practices and failure to comply with a provincial officer’s order.

31 Auto Parts, a car wrecking and parts operation owned by Wanna, was fined a total of $24,000. Fines totaling $9,000 were handed down to Sal Khan and Jim Calagoure, the owners of the site where the offences occurred, and their company 129027 Ontario Inc. Khan, Calagoure and the company pleaded guilty to six offences.

The Court heard that between October 6, 1999 and December 19, 2001 waste materials - including gasoline, oil, antifreeze, auto parts, batteries and hydrocarbons associated with auto-wrecking - were deposited on a property at 6380 Bank St, the site of 31 Auto Parts. The Court heard that some of these materials contaminated surface water and soils on the site.

Wanna was sentenced to concurrent two-month sentences for violating section 14(1) of the Environmental Protection Act (EPA) by discharging a contaminant that caused an adverse effect on the environment; and for violating section 30(1) of the Ontario Water Resources Act (OWRA) by discharging a contaminant that impaired water quality.

Wanna was also sentenced to two concurrent, one-month sentences for two violations of section 186(2) of the EPA, involving failing to comply with a Provincial Officer’s Order requiring the clean-up of the site by June 5, 2002. The one-month sentence is added to the two-month sentence for a total of three months in jail.

Daher Wanna was fined:

• $2,000 for violating section 27(1) of the EPA by operating a waste disposal site without a certificate of approval; and
• $2,000 for violating section 18(1) of Regulation 347, made under the EPA, by generating waste and failing to submit a generator registration report to the Ministry of the Environment.

31 Auto Parts was fined:

• $5,000 for one count under section 14(1) of the EPA;
• $10,000 for two counts under section 186(2) of the EPA;
• $5,000 for one count under section 30(1) of the OWRA;
• $2,000 for one count under section 27(1) of the EPA; and
• $2,000 for one count under section 18(1) of Regulation 347.

Jim Calagoure was fined:

• $3,000 for two counts of failing to comply with a provincial officer’s order, contrary to section 189(2) of the EPA. The Court Order, issued under section 190 of the EPA, required these three parties to clean up the site to ministry specifications.

Sal Khan was fined:

• $3,000 for two counts under section 189(2) of the EPA.

1292027 Ontario Inc. was fined:

• $3,000 for two counts under section 189(2) of the EPA.

A 25-percent victim fine surcharge was added to the fines.

Justice of the Peace Graine M.K. Forrest heard the case on September 15 and 16, 2003 in the Ontario Court of Justice in Ottawa. 

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Contact:
John Steele
Communications Branch
Ministry of the Environment
(416) 314-6666