Will Sewergate mean big pollution fines for Hamilton taxpayers? The answer could come this summer
Residents should soon learn what, if any, financial penalty Hamilton faces as a result of charges over a 24-billion-litre sewage spill into Chedoke Creek.
The Spectator revealed in 2019 the city had kept secret the magnitude of a four-year spill out of an inexplicably open sewer gate and the province laid pollution charges at the end of the next year.
Resolution negotiations over the Sewergate" charges - including over what penalties might be involved with a guilty plea - have since dragged on for more than two years. The city is also simultaneously trying to resolve a separate charge linked to a stinky compost plant that spurred a deluge of complaints in 2018.
A settlement of all those charges could come as early as July.
The province has recently had significant resolution discussions" with the city, said Crown counsel Michael Malleson at the latest provincial court hearing on the charges Thursday.
We believe we're on track to resolve both of the matters," said Malleson, who joined city lawyer Rosalind Cooper in asking for an adjournment to July 20 with a goal to finalize a resolution."
In theory, under the law Hamilton could face a mammoth maximum fine for the spill.
Provincial law allows for fines to be levied for each date" an offence occurred, with the minimum and maximum range of corporate fines set between $25,000 and $6 million. Hamilton's spill lasted for more than 1,500 days.
Experts have previously suggested Hamilton will probably be fined - but hundreds or tens of millions of dollars in penalties would be unlikely.
Dianne Saxe, a former environment commissioner and provincial prosecutor, previously told The Spectator she often tried to give polluting offenders the option to spend more money solving the problem" than on fines.
That happened in Ottawa, where the municipality was fined $565,000 following its own Sewergate" spill into the Ottawa River in 2006.
That was still a high fine at the time - but still a fraction of the theoretical maximum of around $78 million.
At the same time, the city of Ottawa also agreed to separately contribute to a $232-million superpipe" project to prevent future spills that was also funded by the provincial and federal governments.
We don't know if there are any such project negotiations happening behind the scenes in Hamilton - but there are no lack of solutions looking for funding.
Hamilton released a report in 2021 outlining more than $150 million in potential environmental projects that could help clean up and protect the Chedoke Creek and Cootes Paradise marsh watershed.
The city is hoping to start a provincially ordered, $6-million creek dredging project this summer and the Royal Botanical Gardens has pitched a multimillion-dollar, pollution-catching plan near the mouth of Chedoke Creek that involves aeration pipes and floating wetlands.
Matthew Van Dongen is a transportation and environment reporter at The Spectator. mvandongen@thespec.com