City puts Maple Leaf Foods on notice for excess grease discharges

Maple Leaf Foods faces stiff future fines after past efforts to reduce the amount of natural oil and grease discharged into the Winnipeg sewer system from its ham and bacon plant yielded unsuccessful results.

This week, the City of Winnipeg’s wastewater and environment committee voted 3-0 to deny an appeal Maple Leaf Foods Inc. had filed last month after it was found to be non-compliant with a civic bylaw.

The city found, after seven random water samplings between October 2023 and February 2024, natural oil and grease levels in discharges from the Lagimodiere Boulevard facility were over the specified limit on four occasions and near the limit on another occasion.

On March 20, the city issued an order for the company to bring its wastewater discharges into compliance by April 19.

In early April, the company told the city it wished to appeal the order, noting it had been under a pollution prevention plan for natural oil and grease in wastewater in the previous fall and had taken preventative actions to reduce the amounts.

The company now faces fines of $1,000 every time a city sample is over the imposed limit.

Renee Grosselle, Winnipeg manager of environmental standards, said the amount of sampling it does is at the city’s discretion, but noted the department does not have the resources to be doing it much more than every few weeks.

Grosselle and Coun. Brian Mayes, chairman of wastewater committee, said Maple Leaf has been honest in its attempts to become compliant.

The process has been going on for about a decade. The company has twice entered into a pollution prevention plan, where the city works with a customer to get it into compliance.

The company also has received an overstrength discharge licence, where it pays a sizable quarterly surcharge for discharges of certain materials that are also over the proscribed amount — other than natural oil and grease — the city’s wastewater plant is able to treat.

“Maple Leaf Foods seem to genuinely want to get this things under control, but it has just dragged on for too long. We need to get some action here,” Mayes said Tuesday.

Grosselle said at least part of the problem Maple Leaf faced was its ham and bacon production facility at Lagimodiere Boulevard and Marion Street has undergone a series of expansions over the years, including close to $200 million invested in 2021 to build a pre-cooked bacon plant.

Maple Leaf Foods produces much of the ham and bacon it sells in Canada at the plant, where it employs around 2,000 people.

Grosselle said the company invested a lot of money to improve its wastewater treatment operation but it has not solved all the problems.

She said the city can take further action through the Provincial Offences Act, which is administered through the Manitoba court system if there are repeated fines. The fines that can be levied by the courts are heavier and court costs and surcharges are also applied.

In a statement provided the Free Press, the company said it is committed to protecting the environment and meeting all standards that apply to its operations.

“At our Winnipeg plant, we recently made a significant investment in a new wastewater system as we expanded the plant,” the statement said.

“We carefully monitor the performance of the system and are working diligently to further optimize operations to ensure we consistently meet the standards of the bylaw, which is our top priority. We expect this will be fully resolved in the near term.”

In its presentation to the committee, a company official wondered why the city did not warn Maple Leaf it was not in compliance.

Mayes said he overheard one city official say: “We’re not the speedometer, we’re the speed trap.”

martin.cash@freepress.mb.ca