VANCOUVER—Teck Coal Ltd. was fined $78,000 last fall for releasing water heavily polluted with hydrocarbons, on top of hundreds of thousands in fines levied earlier in the year for offences at the company’s different operations, according to the latest environmental enforcement report released by the B.C. government this week.

Altogether, the province fined companies and individuals $715,000 for environmental infractions ranging from industrial water pollution to trafficking bear parts and killing wildlife outside open hunting seasons in the three months of 2017. Since 2006, B.C. has levied $15 million in penalties against companies and individuals for environmental infractions.

Teck was issued the largest single fine of the last quarter of 2017: $52,500 for repeatedly releasing waste water from heavy-duty wash bays at its Line Creek operation, about 25 kilometres from Sparwood, B.C. The other penalties were for failing to inspect and maintain its operations and failing to immediately report the incidents, in which it released polluted waste water, according to the government.

In total the province fined the company — which operates five steelmaking coal mines in the Elk Valley region of southeastern B.C. — was $580,000 in 2017.

The latest fines address infractions that took place between 2013 and 2015. In half of the incidents, the hydrocarbon levels in the waste water were 50 times higher than the company’s permit allowed, and in a quarter of the cases the levels were 200 times higher, according to the Ministry of Environment report.

The company was also fined $1.4 million for Fisheries Act offences after numerous dead fish were found in the Line Creek watershed in 2014.

In a statement Friday, a spokesperson for Teck said the company is “committed to working to continually improve our environmental performance.”

“Water from wash bays at the site is now contained and transported by a vacuum truck service for treatment off-site,” spokesperson Chris Stannell said.

Stannell added that the company now has enhanced monitoring technology and procedures to improve its ability to detect issues.

While Calvin Sandborn, the legal director of the University of Victoria’s Environmental Law Centre, couldn’t comment on the specific incident for which Teck was penalized, he said, in general, “we do need higher fines.”

Historically there’s been very little enforcement of environmental rules by the province, Sandborn said, so he’d like to see more fines like this issued.

But more fundamental changes are needed too. “The whole mining regulation system is absolutely broken,” Sandborn said.

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Alongside better environmental assessment and better enforcement of environmental rules, Sandborn said he wants the government to force mines to put up enough security to ensure those operations can be restored. “Otherwise the tax payers are going to be picking up the cost,” he said.

The B.C. Ministry of Environment and Climate Change did not respond to a request for comment by time of publication.

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