City seeking $4.5M from Co-op refinery in lawsuit over 2020 spill

The City of Regina is taking the Co-op refinery to court.

In a statement of claim filed May 6, the city is seeking more than $4.5 million in damages from the Consumers’ Co-operatives Refineries Limited (CCRL) in the wake of a spill from the refinery in May of 2020.

“We had an overflow where we ended up having to release effluent into the … creek system, which was due to a malfunction at the (CCRL) plant,” Mayor Sandra Masters said on Thursday’s Greg Morgan Morning Show.

According to the statement of claim — which contains allegations not proven in court — the city identified incidents in 2019 and 2020 in which wastewater that contained petroleum hydrocarbons and other substances entered the city’s wastewater treatment plant.

The city claims it identified the CCRL as the source of the contaminated water, and told the company to improve the quality of the wastewater that was being sent into the public sewage works.

The statement of claim said things took a turn on May 22, 2020 when staff saw “a significant volume of a thick tar-like substance in wastewater” that had entered the McCarthy Boulevard Pumping Station.

“It was immediately evident to the City that an extraordinary and severe contamination event was occurring and that this contamination event was unlike any prior incident involving the improper release of wastewater into the Public Sewage Works,” the statement read.

The city contends the wastewater clogged equipment at the pumping station and then continued downstream to Regina’s wastewater treatment plant. Staff got the wastewater diverted into an overflow sewage lagoon, but some got into the plant.

The city’s claim says it identified the refinery as the source of the effluent, and asked CCRL to stop releasing any more wastewater. The claim says the company did stop, but after 24 hours its holding ponds reached capacity and it resumed putting wastewater into the city’s sewage works.

The city then sent samples of the hazardous wastewater for laboratory testing, and it detected oil and grease levels from petroleum derivatives in excess of 600 milligrams per litre. The Wastewater Agreement between the City and the company prohibits those levels from exceeding 15 milligrams per litre.

The statement of claim says that on May 26, the company told the city it was the source of the hazardous wastewater.

CCRL said residual oil had accumulated along the edge and the bottom of the refinery’s holding ponds, which had lower levels of wastewater than usual. The company also said a diesel pump used to discharge the wastewater from the ponds into the public sewage works had been improperly positioned and had malfunctioned, further adding to the problem.

The statement of claim is seeking more than $4.5 million for the cost of cleaning up the overflow lagoon, as well as money to cover the cost of a new sampling point to monitor and test wastewater that’s downstream from CCRL.

The claim lays out 11 ways the company breached its Wastewater Agreement with the city.

“The City states that CCRL’s conduct is egregious, oppressive, high-handed, reckless, destructive, pervasive and invites outrage and warrants punishment, deterrence and denunciation,” the statement of claim read. “The City states that a clear message must be sent to CCRL that CCRL’s conduct will not be tolerated.”

The refinery has yet to file a statement of defence, but did issue a statement saying it was aware of the lawsuit.

“The Co-op Refinery Complex and its insurance providers continue to deal with the complexities of this issue with the hope that the situation can be resolved in the near future,” the statement said.

“We assure you that we have been working with City administration to arrive at a satisfactory conclusion. As this is an ongoing legal matter, we will not be making any further comments.”