Administrative updates to the Guideline for Implementing Environmental Penalties

We updated the Guideline for Implementing Environmental Penalties to include the calculation of environmental penalties for contraventions of subsection 5 (1) of Ontario Regulation 530/18 (Air Pollution - Discharge of Sulphur Dioxide from Petroleum Facilities).

The specific exceedance thresholds and penalty amounts for flaring-type incidents that exceed the 225 kilograms sulphur dioxide threshold over a 24-hour period are in the Appendices of the Guideline for Implementing Environmental Penalties under “Type 3 Violations.”

Starting July 1, 2019, petroleum facilities will be required to:

• calculate sulphur dioxide emissions from flaring-type incidents in accordance with a plan approved by the Ministry of the Environment, Conservation and Parks
• post emitted amounts of sulphur dioxide from flaring-type incidents on their website and notify us if these incidents exceed a threshold of 225 kilograms in a 24-hour period

The following environmental penalties may be applied for flaring-type incidents that exceed the 225 kilograms threshold of sulphur dioxide over a 24-hour period:

• facilities may be subject to a “less serious” environmental penalty, between $15,000-$25,000, if the total discharge is more than 225 kilograms of sulphur dioxide in a 24-hour period, but less than 450 kilograms
• facilities may be subject to a “serious” environmental penalty, between $30,000-$50,000, if the total discharge is more than 450 kilograms of sulphur dioxide in a 24-hour period, but less than 900 kilograms
• facilities may be subject to a “very serious” environmental penalty, between $60,000-$100,000, if the total discharge is more than 900 kilograms of sulphur dioxide in a 24-hour period

Facilities may be subject to an environmental penalty violation for each 24-hour period in which they exceed a threshold. Reductions of up to 35% may be considered by the director if certain preventative and mitigative measures (e.g. risk analysis, preventative maintenance, training, etc.) have been met, and the facility has an Environmental Management System in place.

These new environmental penalties are one example of how the ministry is delivering on our Made-in-Ontario Environment Plan commitment to hold polluters accountable by strengthening enforcement tools. These new environmental penalties are in addition to recent amendments to the Environmental Protection Act via Bill 108 (More Homes, More Choices Act) to expand authority to issue administrative monetary penalties for violations under the act.

Other information

We also updated the Guideline for Implementing Environmental Penalties to remove the references and points calculations related to the defunct Ontario Environmental Leaders program.