The Quebec court has ordered Rio Tinto Iron and Titanium Inc. to pay fines totaling 2 million dollars for violations in connection with the discharge of harmful wastewater into waterways.
The company pleaded guilty to eight counts of violating the Fisheries Act and wastewater regulations for metal and diamond mining, Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC) announced in a press release on Tuesday morning.
Rio Tinto $RIO (-1,2 %) operates a mine on Lac Tio, about 43 kilometers northeast of Havre-Saint-Pierre, Que. in the Côte-Nord.
According to the ECCC, several pollutant deposits were detected there between February and August 2023. The company also failed to take a sample following an unauthorized dumping of a pollutant in November 2023.
According to the authority, some of the wastewater from the Lac Tio mine flows into Lac Petit Pas.
The ECCC launched an investigation into the company in October 2023, which revealed that in February an accidental cutting of power cables had disrupted the pumping and treatment system at a final discharge point, resulting in excessive levels of nickel in the wastewater.
Later in the summer, the ECCC found that the pH of the wastewater was too low, which it believes is harmful to fish.
"The investigation revealed that the wastewater was not treated at the time of these breaches," the authority said.
In a statement, a Rio Tinto spokesperson said that environmental protection remains a priority for the company.
"Concrete measures have been and are being taken to ensure compliance for our wastewater," the statement said.
The company added that it was investing 8 million dollars in 2024 "to improve the robustness of the system that collects, pumps and treats the wastewater."
Rio Tinto has already been added to the ECCC's register of environmental offenders after it was fined $600,000 in 2023 for two incidents in which contaminated wastewater entered the St. Lawrence River. The incidents occurred in 2020 at the company's site in Sorel-Tracy, Queens.