The Bay store in downtown Montreal was fined $765,000 for illegally releasing pollutants into the St. Lawrence River, the Public Prosecution Service of Canada said Friday.
But Nathalie Houle of the federal government's public prosecution office was unable to confirm a Montreal La Presse report the fine was imposed after roughly 146 kilograms of PCBs from old transformers on the building's roof leaked into a drain and into the river.
She said the fine was levied Wednesday and that Environment Canada conducted the investigation.
In an email, a spokesperson for the company said "HBC maintains that it took quick and transparent action to contain and remediate the spill when it occurred in 2011. We have taken this opportunity to improve our processes and continue to provide ongoing training."
Quebec Environment Minister David Heurtel praised the government cleanup efforts in a statement.
"We acted quickly, along with the city and the federal government, to recuperate what we could," he said. "A few hundred barrels of toxic materials were disposed of properly. In the last few years, the Quebec government has substantially tightened the law and raised fines."
Environmentalist Martine Chatelain said that fines are not enough and might not even cover cleanup costs. She said the government should focus on prevention and regular inspections.
"It's self reporting and you have to have a complaint to do an inspection," she said. "There's not enough money to do inspections."
PCBs, or polychlorinated biphenyls, are industrial chemicals that have been used in electrical, hydraulic and other equipment since around 1929.
Their release into the environment was made illegal by Canada in 1985.
Canadian law, however, permits the continued use of the chemicals inside equipment until the end of their service life.
- With files from The Canadian Press
