CN Agrees to Pay $8 Million for Ontario Oil Spills Following 2015 Derailments

Locomotives sit idle in the railyard in Montreal on Nov. 19, 2019. (Ryan Remiorz/The Canadian Press)

The Canadian National Railway Company has agreed to pay $8 million after oil leaked from train cars, causing environmental damage in two separate derailments nine years ago.

An Ontario Court of Justice ordered the fine on July 22 after Canadian National (CN) pleaded guilty to two charges under the Fisheries Act, according to an Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC) news release, as first reported by Blacklock’s Reporter.

The company faced two charges for depositing a harmful substance into water where fish are, one charge from each derailment

CN told The Epoch Times in an email that it accepted responsibility for the derailments and agreed to pay the $8 million in fines.

Both derailments happened in 2015 in Ontario. The first derailment was near Gladwick and Gogama on Feb. 14.

In that instance, 29 cars derailed with 19 of the tank cars leaking crude oil. It was estimated about 1.7 million litres of petroleum crude oil was spilled, according to a Transportation Safety Board (TSB) investigation.

The oil that leaked burned for five days, TSB said, and about 900 feet of mainline track was destroyed. No injuries were reported.

A second derailment happened around the same area on March 7, where 39 tank cars derailed, spilling about 2.6 million litres of crude oil, according to a TSB news release. The oil then ignited and spilled into the nearby Makami River.

A CN rail bridge and about 1,000 feet of rail track were also destroyed in the incident, the TSB said.

ECCC officers investigated both sites and determined “significant” amounts of crude oil had spilled from the train cars.

Ottawa says that both derailments occurred after a piece of railway track broke under the weight of a passing train. It says that CN failed to maintain the tracks.

After the derailments, CN fixed the tracks, according to the government news release.

CN also worked on forest restoration activities with the Mattagami First Nation, which included planting vegetation that was lost and developing a fish spawning lagoon near the Gogama bridge, ECCC says.

The email from the company said it took actions after the derailments to reduce the damage, including containing the oil, removing and treating affected soil and groundwater, and post-remediation monitoring of the area.

“Post-restoration monitoring shows successful re-establishment of vegetation and the presence of fish and wildlife in the restored areas,” the email said.

The company’s name will be added to the Environmental Offenders Registry, the release said. It contains details on corporations convicted under federal environmental laws, according to the ECCC release.

ECCC says it is responsible for enforcing the pollution prevention provisions in the Fisheries Act.

Money collected from the fine will be put into the Government of Canada’s Environmental Damages Fund, the release said.

The fund was created in 1995 and puts money into projects that repair environmental damage or benefit the environment, according to the ECCC news release.