Administrative updates to the Guideline for Implementing Environmental Penalties

The Ministry of the Environment, Conservation and Parks is working to ensure cleaner air for all Ontarians by regulating air contaminants released by petroleum facilities.

To strengthen our enforcement tools, which ensure compliance with environmental laws that protect our air, we updated The Guideline for Implementing Environmental Penalties to include the penalty calculations for new contraventions under:

• O. Reg 88/22: Air Pollution – Discharge of Sulphur Dioxide from Petroleum Facilities
• O. Reg 530/18: Discharge of Sulphur Dioxide from Petroleum Facilities Before 2029

Types of contraventions include:

• monitoring
• reporting
• record keeping
• operating requirements

Starting in early 2022, petroleum facilities were required to:

• use sulphur dioxide-reducing additives on any Fluidized Catalytic Cracking Units by April 26, 2022, until the relevant emission limits phase-in, after December 31, 2026
• stop using solid fuels in combustion devices at affected facilities, as of February 25, 2022
• restrict the use of fuel oil, such as refinery fuel oil, in combustion devices to certain circumstances

Environmental penalties for new sulphur dioxide violations

The following environmental penalties may be applied for new sulphur dioxide violations at petroleum facilities:

New environmental penalties can be found in items 9.1, 9.2, 9.3, 9.4 and 9.6 of Table 2 (Contraventions) in O. Reg. 222/07.

The director may consider penalty reductions of up to 35% if:

• certain preventative and mitigative measures (e.g. risk analysis, preventative maintenance, training, etc.) have been met
• the facility has an Environmental Management System in place

Our government takes sulphur dioxide emissions seriously. These new environmental penalties are one example of how the ministry is delivering on our commitment to hold heavy emitters accountable for not meeting their regulatory requirements.

Other information

We also updated the Guideline for Implementing Environmental Penalties to remove the references, contraventions, and points calculations related to the revoked Effluent Monitoring and Effluent Limit (EMEL) regulations.

Effective July 1, 2021, the nine sector-specific industrial wastewater EMEL regulations, also known as the Municipal Industrial Strategy for Abatement (MISA) regulations, under the Environmental Protection Act (EPA) were revoked. The requirements of the MISA regulations were transferred into existing individual site-specific Environmental Compliance Approvals and started applying to the regulated facilities once the regulations were revoked on July 1, 2021 (ERO# 019-0773).

We also made consequential amendments to the environmental penalties regulations, effective July 1, 2021, under the EPA and the Ontario Water Resources Act, to ensure that the two environmental penalties regulations will continue to apply to the same industrial facilities and violations.

Revoking the MISA regulations:

• provided industrial wastewater facilities with greater flexibility to make operational improvements
• removed duplication and overlap, while having no impact on where environmental penalties could be issued

We updated the guideline to remove references related to the EMEL regulations contraventions.