NB Southern Railway pleads guilty to 2 labelling of dangerous goods charges, fined $50K
NB Southern Railway has pleaded guilty to two charges of failing to properly document crude oil tank cargo and has been fined $50,000.
The company, a subsidiary of J.D. Irving Ltd., had been facing a trial on 24 charges, but entered the two guilty pleas on Thursday in Saint John provincial court and the other 22 charges were withdrawn.
The case stems from a Transport Canada investigation triggered by the Lac-Mégantic derailment and fire that killed 47 people in Quebec in July 2013.
Although that train belonged to another railway — Montreal, Maine and Atlantic — and was travelling on that company's track, the crude rail cars were destined for Saint John and were to travel on NB Southern track.
That's what brought investigators to Saint John.
"The offences that we had in this case has no relation to Lac-Mégantic whatsoever," federal prosecutor Denis Lavoie told reporters outside the courthouse.
Investigators found that 6,800 tank cars of crude sent out prior to the Lac-Mégantic disaster had incorrect documentation prepared by untrained and uncertified NB Southern staff.
"Every one of those documents had to have the specifics of the classification, the proper classification of the crude oil that was in the rail cars," said Lavoie.
Defence lawyer Catherine Lahey said the "original bills of lading that were received contained some errors. Those errors were not caught initially."
The NB Southern errors did not result in an incident, she said, and the company acted quickly to train its workers in how to handle documentation within two weeks of the arrival in 2014 of Transport Canada investigators.
Judge David Walker described the charges as a "documentation issue" and accepted the joint sentencing recommendation from the Crown and defence.
He noted the company co-operated with investigators and had its staff trained long before it was charged with the offences.
A "complex" five-week trial was also averted with the guilty pleas, he said.
Senior company managers declined to comment following the proceedings.
About $40,000 of the fine will go to the federal government to conduct programs of technical research and investigation into the development and improvement of safety marks, safety requirements and safety standards" related to the transportation of dangerous goods.
Twelve of the initial charges, under the Transportation of Dangerous Goods Act, related to failing to create proper shipping documents for the purpose of transporting petroleum crude oil.
The other 12 charges related to having unqualified personnel "offer for transport dangerous goods … to wit: petroleum crude oil," according to the informant, Transport Canada inspector Marc Grignon.
The alleged offences occurred between Nov. 3, 2012, and July 5, 2013.
During that period, about 14,000 cars of crude oil were transported for Irving Oil, according to the Crown.
On Oct. 26, 2017, Irving Oil was ordered to pay $4 million after pleading guilty to 34 offences under the Transportation of Dangerous Goods Act.
About $3.6 million of that money was directed to research programs in the field of safety standards. Another $400,000 was paid in fines.
In addition, Irving Oil was ordered to submit a plan of corrective measures with Transport Canada.
