Rupert Acres trailer park fined $100K for raw sewage violations

A local trailer park has been fined $100,000 for failing to ensure its raw sewage system complies with environmental standards. 

The company that owns the Rupert Acres mobile home park in Aweres Township has also been slapped with a $25,000 victim fine surcharge, according to a news release issued today by Ontario’s Ministry of Environment, Conservation and Parks. 

The conviction, handed down July 31, "is for failing to comply with ministry approval by exceeding the maximum annual concentration limit for total suspended solids in effluent sampled from boundary monitoring wells."

Rupert Acres Limited is the owner of the park, which includes approximately 75 mobile homes.

“The park contains a non-municipal sewage works,” the news release says. “The sewage works has two lagoons that were designed to work in sequence, known as the ‘south lagoon’ and the ‘north lagoon.’” 

The south lagoon is designed to receive raw sewage that is then discharged, via a control gate in a culvert, to the north lagoon, where effluent is discharged to the subsoil. Effluent limits of certain parameters, including total suspended solids, are monitored by mandatory sampling of boundary wells.

In August 2015, the company was issued an amended Environmental Compliance Approval for the sewage works, which mandates that the annual average concentration of the total suspended solids in the effluent sampled from the boundary wells does not exceed 40 milligrams per litre (mg/L).

The ministry alleged that throughout 2020, the samples collected at Rupert Acres exceeded the limit.

“The ministry’s Environmental Investigations and Enforcement Branch investigated and laid charges which resulted in the conviction,” the release states.

The company has six years to pay the fines.