Ready Mix Concrete Sector: Fisheries Act Compliance

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Ready Mix Concrete Sector Fisheries Act
Compliance
www.ec.gc.ca
Environmental Stewardship Branch
Rodger Albright Feb 17, 2007
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Attention Please!

• 95,000 change
• Fine Savings

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Why?

• Federal Fisheries Act Section 36 (3)
• (3) Subject to subsection (4), no person shall
  deposit or permit the deposit of a deleterious
  substance of any type in water frequented by fish
  or in any place under any conditions where the
  deleterious substance or any other deleterious
  substance that results from the deposit of the
  deleterious substance may enter any such water.

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Case Study Doing it Wrong!

• British Columbia, 2001
• Polluting a Creek
• Depositing a deleterious substance in a place
  where it may enter fish bearing waters
• Washing chutes at a construction site
• Failed to comply with inspectors directions
• Had pH levels gt9.0
• considered harmful to aquatic life
• no observed fish kill
• 95,000 fine

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Environment Canada Fisheries Act National
Inspection Plan

• Includes Ready Mix Concrete Industry
• Fall 2007, or Spring 2008
• To be preceded by Compliance Promotion initiative
  
• Sets the stage for enforcement
• Raise compliance with non-regulatory instruments
• Recommended Guideline for Environmental
  Management Practices for Ready Mix Concrete
  Operations 2004
• Allow you to evaluate site
  
• Ensure the good systems are working
• Fix risky systems
• Install appropriate new systems
• Objective is compliance not fines!

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Fisheries Act Inspection Plan

• Inspect companies with history of compliance
  issues
• Random selection of others
• Compliance promotion /inspection initiative does
  not alter a normal enforcement response to a
  complaint

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Fisheries Act

• Pass
• Fail
• Warning
• Inspectors direction
• Prosecution
• What are desirable effluent characteristics
• pH gt6 and lt9
• Non acutely lethal
• (e.g. 96 hour LC 50 with rainbow trout)
• Undiluted effluent 50 die fail
• Suspended solids
• often parallel provincial /municipal values
• reference CCME guidelines (10 over background)
• Other factors can affect the acceptability of the
  effluent

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Fisheries Act Due Diligence

• what a reasonable person would have done
• reason a lot of background information is
  requested at time of inspection
• consideration in follow-up and sentencing
• Lets see!

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Background Information onsite

• Written company environmental policy
• Operations/accidents/offsite conditions
• Obvious connections to receiving waters
• Site plans
• Volumes
• Product throughput
• Process and storm water recycling/released
• Conditions around site operations/storage
• Precautions to prevent deposit
• Best practices conservation/operations/chemicals
• Recycling/Treatment settling basins
• Sampling/reporting

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Background Information off-site

• Cleaning chutes is main issue
• Policy for off-site truck cleaning
• Designated safe location on job site
• work with developer to assign such
  locations/equipment
• To be rehabilitated later
• Metal washout boxes/storage tanks
• Rinse/collect washwater/return to site
• No discharge zones! (not limited to those below)
  
• Any area leading to watercourse
• Ditches/brooks etc.
• Storm sewers

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Provincial Requirements

• Often have permits
• Water (surface, groundwater)
• Air
• Noise
• Solid waste
• Spills

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Municipal By-Laws

• Halifax (W 101)
• pH gt5.5 and lt 9.5
• Total suspended solids lt300 mg/l
• Others metals/oil and grease etc.
• Compliance Promotion plan
• Worked with them already
• Very direct and focused
• If it goes in the storm sewer charge them

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Canadian Environmental Protection ACT (CEPA)

• Air pollutants such as PM and sulphur dioxide
  have been declared toxic under the Canadian
  Environmental Protection Act, 1999
• Designated toxic substances
• PM (particulate matter)
• Dust and fugitive emissions from roads, storage
  piles, cement mixing
• PM 10 (particulate matter of 10 microns or less)
• Combustion emissions from on-site boilers,
  heaters, and vehicles (e.g. sulphur dioxide,
  nitrogen oxides, volatile organic compounds and
  fine particulate matter (PM2.5))
• PM 2.5 (particulate matter of 2.5 microns or
  less)
• is linked to human health concerns such as
  cardio-respiratory disease, lung cancer, and
  premature death
• also forms smog, which in addition to causing
  health issues, also reduces visibility
• May require National Pollutant Release Inventory
  (NPRI) reporting

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Size comparison of PM

• Particulate matter is divided into fractions
  based on its size in microns (µm)
• Total Suspended Particulate (TSP) less than 100
  microns in diameter e.g. road dust, soil
• PM10 less than 10 microns in diameter e.g.
  cement dust
• PM2.5 less than 2.5 microns in diameter e.g.
  engine and vehicle combustion
• Larger fraction is more noticeable and may be a
  nuisance to nearby neighbours
• Finer fraction can travel farther and has greater
  potential health effects

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Canadian Environmental Protection ACT (CEPA)

• NPRI reporting If you exceed
• 20,000 kg of PM
• 500 kg of PM 10
• 300 kg of PM 2.5
• Using emission factors Mineral Products
  Industry (Table 11.12-3 Plant Wide Emission
  Factors per yard of Truck Mix Concrete)
• Lower value indicated for reporting (estimates
  by author)
• 980 cy /day or 2000 tons /day uncontrolled
• 1940 cy /day or 4400 tons /day designated
  controlled

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Next Steps March, April, May 2007

• Atlantic Provinces Ready Mix Concrete Association
• Effective compliance promotion outreach to
  members and non- members
• Provinces and Municipalities
• Identify and coordinate efforts
• Discuss results with Environment Canada
  Enforcement

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www.ec.gc.ca
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Smog in Halifax