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"B.C. Court of Appeal rulings and new legislative amendments settle contaminated sites controversy", Environmental Law Bulletins Harper Grey LLP
May 2003Prepared by Harper Grey LLP Environmental Law Group
The British Columbia Court of Appeal has settled a contaminated sites controversy that troubled trial courts for years. The question was this: What, if anything, did a party seeking to recover clean-up costs on a contaminated site according to section 27(4) of the Waste Management Act have to do before claiming against the parties responsible for the contamination? It was settled in two judgements issued by the Court on January 28—Workshop Holdings Ltd. v. CAE Machinery and No. 158 Seabright Holdings Ltd. et al v. Imperial Oil Limited et al.
The Court quickly decided that no predeterminations were necessary; a party can bring an action to recover remediation costs so long as it has incurred the costs to clean up a contaminated site. The ruling on these two cases should bring some much-needed certainty to the cost recovery process. The B.C. Legislature had also sought to clarify the issues by enacting several amendments to the Waste Management Act, and these came into force between the trial and appeal decisions in Seabright and Workshop. It seems clear that they were intended to do what the Court of Appeal did in the Workshop and Seabright cases. Thus the reasoning of Justice Huddart, speaking for Justices Rowles and Levine who heard the appeals with her, will likely be followed in any later cases involving the new legislation.
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