A B.C. pulp and paper mill has once again been struck with environmental penalties after provincial inspectors found it had discharged acutely toxic effluent into the Kootenay River and failed to properly maintain equipment that treats the facility’s toxic waste.
The three penalties to the Domtar Inc.’s Skookumchuck, B.C., mill span 2022 to 2024 and totalled more than $56,000. They come just over a month after the Ministry of Environment and Parks penalized the mill north of Cranbrook for nearly two dozen failures to control the release of emissions.
In her latest ruling, director of the Environmental Management Act Jennifer Mayberry noted the Kootenay River is home to a number of fish species, including rainbow trout, sucker, redside shiner, torrent sculpin and the potentially at-risk west slope cutthroat trout.
Tests carried out on mill effluent in the summer of 2023 found it was toxic to trout. Domtar submitted that the toxicity only lasted for a short duration. Mayberry determined the violations were of a medium severity.
The director noted the mill had been penalized over $80,000 between 2019 and 2021 for similar environmental violations. Another more than $60,000 in penalties were handed to the mill for other violations between 2019 and 2022. Mayberry upped the latest penalty by $5,000 as a result of the history of violations.
In submissions, Domtar sought to have its penalties reduced for responding to the toxicity failure. Mayberry agreed, dropping the penalty for toxic effluent by $3,000 for the company’s efforts to correct the contravention and prevent it from happening again.
Failures were 'easy to predict'
Penalties were also handed to the company for failing to properly maintain a settling basin. On March 21, 2024, the mill was found to have failed to properly dredge one of its effluent basins, leading to an accumulation of solids and reduced capacity to treat effluent.
“Skookumchuck’s inaction increased the likelihood of a failure and the events should have been relatively easy to predict,” wrote Mayberry.
“The ministry's mandate is to prevent harm to the environment and human health — not wait to act until after an issue has arisen.”
A third penalty was handed to the Domtar mill after a sludge tank overflowed in 2022, bypassing the effluent treatment system and discharging about a 1,000 litres of contaminants (including sludge and weak black liquor) to the adjacent ground.
In 2023, another 2,500 litres of partially treated effluent was found to have discharged to the ground after bypassing the mill’s treatment works.
The mill discharges a maximum of 44,000 square metres of effluent a day, leading Mayberry to classify the contravention as “low” but increasing the penalty due to the mill’s past failures.
“By failing to maintain the authorized works in good working order, Skookumchuck knowingly and willfully caused the overflows,” Mayberry ruled.
A spokesperson for Domtar said the company planned to appeal parts of the decision.
“Domtar takes findings of non-compliance seriously and remains committed to maintaining the highest standards of environmental compliance,” the spokesperson wrote in an email.
“We continue to invest in long-term improvements to effluent management at the Skookumchuck mill, including a bio-spike trial to enhance our treatment system.”
The Skookumchuck mill is not the company's first facility to face sanctions for releasing effluent into the environment.
In 2016, the Canadian government handed a $225,000 penalty to the company’s Northern Pulp mill for leaking more than 47 million litres of pulp and paper effluent into Pictou Harbour, N.S. Two years later, federal authorities fined its mill in Mackenzie, B.C., $900,000 for leaking effluent into a lake. Both mills were added to Canada’s environmental offenders registry.
And in January 2024, a wholly owned subsidiary of Paper Excellence was told to pay $25,500 in penalties for dumping highly toxic waste into the ocean from its Crofton pulp and paper mill on Vancouver Island.
Domtar’s green forestry certificates at risk
Beyond government oversight, Domtar’s environmental certifications are also currently under scrutiny by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), the world’s premier sustainable forestry certification body.
In 2007, FSC dissociated from Asia Pulp & Paper (APP) over allegations of widespread deforestation.
A few years later, Paper Excellence entered the North American market, spending billions of dollars in recent years to acquire dozens of mills across Canada and the U.S. Renamed Domtar in 2024, it now manages roughly 22 million hectares of forest and has quickly become the largest privately held forestry company in Canada.
In 2023, a joint investigation by Glacier Media and partners with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists found a sprawling nexus of business ties linking APP and Paper Excellence, now Domtar. The reporting prompted a parliamentary committee investigation into Domtar’s corporate ties and business links, which was derailed earlier this year when then Prime Minister Justin Trudeau prorogued Parliament.
Despite reporting to the contrary, Paper Excellence and APP had previously denied they were part of the same corporate group. But in November 2024, a Domtar spokesperson confirmed company owner Jackson Wijaya would openly consolidate control over APP.
Last year, the FSC commissioned a report into the two companies' corporate links, which ultimately found no significant ties. But critics slammed the results after it was learned the firm who carried out the report, McMillan LLP, had repeatedly provided legal counsel to Domtar in the past.
In response, the FSC said it has commissioned another independent legal review to assess the “implications” of the corporate consolidation, and whether APP’s disassociation with the green credentials body would impact the Canadian forestry giant.
“FSC dissociated from APP because of its involvement in destructive activities unacceptable to FSC,” the body wrote last week in a press release.
“Therefore, no organization in the APP corporate group is eligible for association or certification, until it completes a remedy process.”
The results of the FSC's legal review have yet to been released.
Domtar spokesperson Chris Stoicheff said in an email that the company “remains a distinct entity from APP, with no operational overlap and separate governance structures.”
“Domtar’s commitment to internationally recognized third-party certifications remains unwavering,” he added.
