British Columbia’s Environmental Appeal Board has upheld a ruling that handed Peace River Coal a C$800,000 (US$580,000) fine after it repeatedly failed to comply with its environmental permit for the Trend-Roman mine near Tumbler Ridge, reported Business in Vancouver.
The penalty was the largest ever issued by the B.C. Ministry of the Environment under the Environmental Management Act, when it was first handed down in 2021.
“I do not consider the resulting penalty to be too large in the context of the facts of this case,” wrote Environmental Appeal Board panel chair Maureen Baird in her August 27 ruling. “While the penalty is large, it, in my view, is required to satisfy the goals of encouraging compliance and deterring others.”
In the original decision, the mine was found to have breached selenium discharge limits by as much as 350% between 2016 and 2019. At one site, weekly selenium discharge limits were violated 85% of the time in 2017 and nearly 80% of the time in 2018, reported Business in Vancouver. At another site, discharge of the toxic element breached limits throughout all of 2016, 2017 and 2018, and 42 of 52 weeks in 2019.
The company was sent multiple warning letters between 2016 and 2019, but failed to become compliant.
Shut in 2014 due to low coal prices, then-owner Anglo American argued the breaches did not arise from its own conduct, as the Trend-Roman mine has been in a “care and maintenance” state since January 2015. However, in her decision, Baird affirmed the environmental permit requirements applied “under all circumstances, including operational periods and periods of care and maintenance.”
Conuma Resources purchased the Peace River Coal operations, which included Trend-Roman, from Anglo American in 2024.