FN files suit over 2019 toxic fluid leak – Winnipeg Free Press

Oct. 10, 2024

A Manitoba First Nation has launched a $10-million lawsuit against the paper mill in The Pas after a massive amount of toxic fluid leaked into the river where its residents fish, in 2019.

Opaskwayak Cree Nation has filed a claim against Canadian Kraft Paper and the federal and provincial governments that says it wasn’t warned about the hazard until a court ruling four years after 181 million litres of byproduct leaked into the Saskatchewan River.

In December 2023, the company was ordered to pay a million-dollar fine after pleading guilty to a charge under the federal Fisheries Act in Manitoba’s provincial court.

The company admitted that for six days, beginning Feb. 27, 2019, the mill released what Environment Canada called an acutely lethal toxin into the river, which has many species of fish, including endangered lake sturgeon. The release from a leaky pipe contained black liquor, a manufacturing byproduct that is toxic to fish.