Case - Hamilton Beach Appeal

Hamilton Beach Brands Canada Inc. operates a warehousing facility in Picton, Ontario. This 1.6 hectare property is less than one kilometer away from Lake Ontario’s Picton Bay.

The property was formerly a household appliance manufacturing facility during the 1960s and 1970s. Since then the facility has been used for warehousing.

Ontario’s Ministry of Environment and Climate Change (MOECC) identified volatile organic compounds on-site, after its Spill Action Centre received information about buried metal drums on the property in June 2013.

Water samples collected by the MOECC in 2014 detected volatile organic compounds in an unnamed tributary near the Hamilton Beach site, discharging into Picton Bay.

On April 12, 2017, the Director of the Ministry of Environment and Climate Change issued an order to delineate the contamination migrating from the Hamilton Beach site. The Director issued this order to parties who own, have owned or managed the property.

In May 2017, the orderees appealed the Director’s order with the Environmental Review Tribunal. The Tribunal noted this was a matter for the hearing.

The Canadian Environmental Law Association and Waterkeeper intervened in this hearing.

Divisional Court heard the case on May 23, 2018, with a decision expected in the following months.