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ARTICLE · 23 NOVEMBER 2010

Everyone Liable for PCB-Contaminated Oil

Siskinds LLP
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A British Columbia used oil company has successfully sued the owner of a PCB transformer, and everyone down a contractual chain, for failing to warn them that the oil was almost pure PCBs. It was awarded $776,033.75.

CanadaEnvironment
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A British Columbia used oil company has successfully sued the owner of a PCB transformer, and everyone down a contractual chain, for failing to warn them that the oil was almost pure PCBs. It was awarded $776,033.75.

The plaintiff, Enviro West Inc. ("Enviro West"), was hired by Boundary Electric (1985) Ltd. ("Boundary Electric") to drain the waste oil from a transformer (the "Transformer") owned by Copper Mountain. Copper Mountain hired Canyon Electric to do a major restructuring of the mine's electric system. Canyon subcontracted part of the work, including disposal of the Transformer, to Boundary Electric, which in turn subcontracted the actual disposal to Enviro West. The Transformer was labelled "Askarel", and everyone knew there were PCBs in the oil, but neither Boundary nor Enviro West knew that the level of PCBs was over the regulatory limit, 50 ppm. Neither Boundary nor EnviroWest were licenced to handle PCB waste.

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