Charges Laid In Lemon Creek Fuel Spill

Lemon Creek sign and creek

Thank you to everyone who wrote letters, to the media who covered the story, to West Coast Environmental Law, Lawyers Jeff Jones and Lilina Lysenko, Otto Langer, Fisheries Biologist and to the wisdom of the late Sinixt Elder Eva Orr, whose wise words, "Never Give Up" are an inspiration to those of use engaged in social and environmental justice.

 

- Marilyn Burgoon

Three years after a tanker truck spilled jet fuel into Lemon Creek prosecutors have approved charges.

 

Eight counts have been laid against Executive Flight Centre, its driver, and the BC government.

 

This after a truck took a wrong turn onto a logging road and overturned spilling 33,000 litres of fuel.

 

It entered Lemon Creek and then the Slocan, Kootenay, and Columbia rivers resulting in a mass evacuation and orders not to swim in or drink from those bodies of water.

 

Six of the charges laid Friday are under the Environmental Management Act and the rest under the Fisheries Act.

 

A first court appearance is set for Sept. 13 in Nelson.

 

The charges come after Slocan Valley resident Marilyn Burgoon launched a private prosecution.

 

The federal government subsequently took over the case and stayed her charges but on Friday laid its own.

 

The Public Prosecution Service of Canada declined an interview request.

Link to the original article:
http://www.mykootenaynow.com/15558/charges-laid-lemon-creek-fuel-spill/