Twin Rivers Paper Company Inc. - conviction information for 2024-05-30

Twin Rivers Paper Company Inc. is an extra-provincial corporation that produces specialty paper, lumber, energy, and pulp. The company’s activities in New Brunswick include the operation of a wood yard, a groundwood pulp mill, a bleached sulphite pulp mill, a chemical recovery facility, a steam and power plant, and a remotely located effluent treatment lagoon in Saint-Basile. The company is composed of the Edmundston pulp mill, located in Edmundston, New Brunswick, and the Madawaska paper mill, located in Madawaska, Maine.

 

On March 10, 2021, during a routine inspection at Twin Rivers Paper Company Inc. in Edmundston, Environment and Climate Change Canada enforcement officers noted that a pipeline owned and operated by the company had failed, resulting in the deposit of groundwood white water into the fish-bearing Madawaska River.

 

An investigation by Environment and Climate Change Canada into the cause of the pipeline failure later determined that it was due to extensive external corrosion, resulting in the release of an estimated 102,000 litres of groundwood white water into the Madawaska River for a period of approximately 24 hours. Testing of the groundwood white water samples determined the substance to be deleterious or harmful to fish.

Twin Rivers Paper Company Inc. did between the 7th day of March 2021 and the 12th day of March 2021 at or near Edmundston, Madawaska County, Province of New Brunswick, unlawfully deposit or permit the deposit of a deleterious substance, namely groundwood white water, in water frequented by fish, to wit: the Madawaska River, or in any place under conditions where the deleterious substance may enter such water, contrary to s.s. 36(3) of the Fisheries Act R.S.C. 1985, c. F-14, as amended,  thereby committing an offence contrary to s.s. 40(2) of the Fisheries Act, R.S.C. 1985, c. F-14 as amended.