Lawyers respond to fuel lawsuit
A lawyer for the landowner named in the lawsuit launched by the Mohawk Council of Kahnawake (MCK) over the fuel spill in Chateauguay last year said their client isn’t at fault, since there’s no proof diesel from the spill traversed into Kahnawake’s territory.
The lawyer, Alexandre Fallon, cited an investigation carried out by Quebec’s environmental ministry that concluded the spill last year on February 1 in the city’s industrial sector wasn’t linked to the diesel found around the Suzanne River in Kahnawake about a week later.
He represents 9251-4991 Quebec Inc., the numbered company that owns the land at 2325 Ford Boulevard where the spill happened. That company is owned by Ramon Caracas and manages real estate properties, according to Quebec’s business registry.
“The two events are entirely unrelated,” Fallon wrote in an email to The Eastern Door. “The (ministry’s) conclusion is based on the absence of a hydrological link between the two sites where contamination was present, notably because the direction of flow of the Suzanne River does not match with the river flowing from Chateauguay.”
That investigation also concluded the diesel fuel found in the territory didn’t originate from Chateauguay because it was only found at the groundwater level in Kahnawake, Fallon wrote, while in Chateauguay the contamination was noted at the surface water level.
In addition to that, sampling carried out by Environment Canada also revealed the pollutants found at each of the two sites studied didn’t match, he wrote.
Quebec’s environment ministry confirmed it still maintains that conclusion in a comment to The Eastern Door this week. Environment Canada meanwhile declined to confirm, citing an ongoing investigation.
The MCK filed its lawsuit back in July, initially targeting the City of Chateauguay only. The two other defendants were only added last month. La Pétrolière N&R Sol Inc., a former heating oil business that owned the oil tanker that spilled then, according to the MCK, has yet to formally respond with legal representation.
The band council is seeking over $600,000 in damages from all three, maintaining that the spill site in Chateauguay is to blame for the pollution found in its territory as of February 9 of last year. The damages cover the costly cleanup the MCK undertook last winter to clean up the Suzanne River and other areas around it.
“Kahnawake had to expense our own funds to deal with this, and it’s not our responsibility to do that. The other parties now need to repay what we had to expense,” MCK grand chief Cody Diabo said.
Fallon also said the band council shouldn’t have named his client in the lawsuit because it was its tenant, La Pétrolière, that caused the fuel spill.
“Nevertheless, our client expeditiously contained the spill and fully remediated all contamination to the environment caused by the spill, under the supervision of the (Quebec environmental ministry),” Fallon wrote. “Our client has fully complied with its obligations in responding to the spill on its property and has not caused any harm to the Council or the community of Kahnawake.”
Sign up for email updates from The Eastern Door
The band council maintained otherwise in its application to Quebec Superior Court, arguing the cleanup carried out by the property owner of the land in April should have also extended to Kahnawake, not just around the spill site in Chateauguay only.
