‘Leaching’ into Pitt River: FOI documents shed light on $150,000 Ground X fine

In August 2024, the Ministry of Environment issued Ground X Site Services a $150,000 fine after inspectors concluded the 750 Kingsway Ave. facility was introducing waste into Pitt River.

Several government emails were recently published detailing the investigation following a Freedom of Information request.

In the spring of 2022, a Ministry of Environment inspector observed: “hydrocarbons and sediment flowing from mill site into ditch” at the Ground X site, according to an inspector report.

The company, which handles the disposal and recycling of construction materials, used dumping pits at 750 Kingsway to allow hydrovac trucks to leave construction slurry at the site. Liquid in the pit settled before being pumped into holding tanks, according to an inspection report.

The 2022 report noted Port Coquitlam was “looking at bylaw violations.”

“I am not aware of any immediate hazards,” the inspector wrote.

More than a year later, concerns about Ground X were raised again, this time by Richard Elliott, executive director of the province’s Water, Fish & Wildlife division.

Elliott wrote to Brady Nelless, executive director of the Ministry of Environment’s Compliance and Environmental Enforcement division.

“Sorry to pester you again but I was wondering if there was [an] update or timeline (Fall 2023, Spring 2024, etc. . .) on the investigation,” Elliott wrote. “I have been told there has been another larger dumping pit on the site that’s leaching into the river.”

Around the same time of the email exchange, provincial site inspectors reported seeing: “stockpiles of soil, concrete, asphalt, compost and a hydrovac waste pit.”

Ground X staff told inspectors there is no landfill on site and green waste isn’t accepted. In the event compost is mistakenly included in a load, Ground X ensures the green waste is shipped to a compost facility, according to a company representative.

Officers noted an “erosion channel into the Pitt River” from the site, as well as a “drainage swale” into a Kingsway Road ditch.

Officers didn’t report seeing any discharge flowing during inspection.

Soil tests showed excess chloride and copper. Water tests showed excessive sulfide and zinc.

Other tests found levels of Fecal Coliforms, E. Coli, Arsenic, Chromium, Cobalt, and Lead, Benzo(a)pyrene, Pyrene, and Chloroform exceeded the BC Water Quality Guidelines, ranging from 11 percent (Arsenic) to 14,650 percent (Pyrene) over the limit.

In July 2024, a B.C. Supreme Court judge temporarily barred Ground X from depositing and removing soil and hydrovac waste, altering the land and operating on the site without a business licence.

In its response to the fine notice, Ground X disagreed with the ministry’s description of the facility as a “waste disposal facility,” instead calling it a transfer facility for re-use materials, asserting its activities do not require a waste-discharge permit.

“I want to be abundantly clear at this point that Ground X is acknowledging significant challenges with the onsite water management,” the company stated. “The claim that Ground X is causing pollution and discharging into the Pitt River is grossly exaggerated and frankly without merit.”

The province, however, stated that effluent is broadly defined under the EMA to include any harmful substance, regardless of whether the waste has any commercial value or useful purpose.

The Pitt River is a major tributary of the Fraser River.