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An Alberta trucking company V Trans Ltd and its director Husanpreet Singh have both been convicted and fined by the Ministry of Environment, Conservation and Parks following an oil spill involving one of their trucks in 2021.

In April 2021, a vehicle owned by the company was involved in a collision on Highway 11 beside Lake Helen. The accident resulted in a diesel spill that contaminated the soil and vegetation in a ditch and travelled through a culvert into the nearby lake.

Lake Helen is a source of drinking water for the Lake Helen First Nation community and it is also a cold water fishery that supports species that are particularly sensitive to hydrocarbon contamination.

The ministry became aware of the oil spill in May 2021 and contacted the company alerting them that they must report and clean up the spill.

Ultimately the company did not sufficiently contain the spill and they did not clean up any of the contamination afterwards.

In July 2021, the company and Mr. Singh were directed to clean the spill up and perform site remediation with a deadline date.

Additionally, a report describing the work required to accomplish this was to be submitted by a qualified professional and sent to the ministry. The cleanup and the report were never performed.

In November 2022, a third party was brought in to handle the spill at a cost of over $84,000 funded out of the ministry’s Environmental Clean-Up Fund.

This led to the ministry’s Environmental Investigations and Enforcement Branch investigating and laying charges which resulted in the convictions on January 22, 2024.

V Trans Ltd was convicted of:

• Having control of a pollutant that was spilled and failing to notify the ministry
• Failing to comply with a ministry Order by failing to remove all contamination from a site
• Failing to provide the ministry with a report prepared by a qualified professional

The company was fined $125,000 plus a victim fine surcharge of $31,250.

Husanpreet Singh was convicted of:

• Failing to comply with a ministry Order by failing to remove all contamination from a site
• Failing to comply with a ministry Order by failing to provide the ministry with a report prepared by a qualified professional
• Failing in his duty as the director of V Trans Ltd. to notify the ministry of a discharge of a contaminant, namely diesel fuel

Husanpreet Singh was fined $15,000 plus a victim fine surcharge of $3,750.

As part of sentencing, an Order was issued to the defendants requiring that an additional $84,004.58 be paid to the Minister of Finance to cover the cost of the clean-up.