Burlington company fined for dumping oil in Stoney Creek

Ontario’s Ministry of the Environment has fined a Burlington company $120,000 for dumping oil sludge on the Stoney Creek Mountain.

Green Diesel Canada Ltd., a firm that processes waste from cooking oil and sells the product, illegally disposed of the sludge near Swayze Road, off Rymal Road at Upper Centennial, according to the provincial agency.

The ditch where the contaminants were discharged flows into Sinkhole Creek, a tributary of Twenty Mile Creek, which runs into Lake Ontario.

"Polluters should be aware that the ministry’s Investigations and Enforcement Branch will vigorously pursue charges when our environmental laws are broken," Environment Minister Jim Bradley said in a statement.

The ministry received reports of dumping at Swayze Road in September 2009. It found "thousands of litres of a greasy oily substance" in the ditch, which the City of Hamilton eventually cleaned later that month.

Less than two months later, the ministry said, a city employee noticed a truck belonging to Green Diesel Canada dumping sludge at the same location. Again, the city took on the cleanup.

In addition to issuing the fines, the ministry has ordered Green Diesel Canada to pay the city about $25,000 for the remediation.

"It's frustrating that it's a Burlington-based company dumping in Hamilton," said Lynda Lukasik, executive director of Environment Hamilton. "And shocking to think that the company had been doing it for so long.... it's blatant disregard for the natural environment."

This is not the first time the MOE has fined the chemical company. In 2010, the province fined Green Diesel Canada $28,300 plus victim surcharges for dumping grease byproduct at sites in the Hamilton and Niagara regions.

In 2010, Julian Lothringen, the company’s director, also received a suspended sentence and was issued a one-year probation order.

The company was not immediately available for comment on Friday afternoon.