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ATIKOKAN — Failing to fix a sewage problem is costing the Town of Atikokan $75,000, maybe more.
The Ministry of Environment, Conservation and Parks on Friday announced fines totaling $60,000 and $15,000 in victim fine surcharges against the municipality.
Fort Frances-based lawyer Douglas Judson said Monday the reasons for the fine are quite familiar to a client, Melissa Bates, who is suing the town for damages after her basement was flooded twice in 2022 by sewage backflow.
The town was served with a statement of claim last April and has not responded, he said.
“I’m shocked that the municipality … has not been more willing to make things right with one of their citizens,” Judson said in an interview.
Bates began repairs to her basement after flooding in April 2022, only to have to start all over again three months later when flooding struck again, he said.
Judson described the expenses incurred by Bates, a foster parent, as “substantial.”
Her statement of claim seeks $130,000 in damages, including $30,000 in aggravated, exemplary and punitive damages, from the town and the Red Lake-based company that operates Atikokan’s sewage system.
“The Town of Atikokan has continued to deny liability to Ms. Bates, despite municipal records confirming that it failed to comply with its own operating procedures and that automated responses at its pumping stations were not properly programmed to respond to high water levels in April 2022,” according to a statement from Judson’s law firm.
“Ms. Bates is a foster mom of modest means,” the law firm’s statement concludes. “Her ability to offer a safe and healthy home to the children in her care is integral to her livelihood. Yet the town has repeatedly refused to offer Ms. Bates the exact type of backflow prevention valve described in the ministry’s release. Ms. Bates lives right next door to a deficient pumping station that has been allowed to destroy her basement twice.”
The town did not reply to email and phone requests for comment on Monday.
Atikokan violated the Ontario Water Resources Act on “various dates” between April 2019 and March 2020, according to a statement issued by the ministry.
The town was ordered in 2018 to complete upgrades “to prevent surcharging of the system, which had resulted in sewage backups into basements and overflows of untreated sewage into the Atikokan River,” according to the ministry’s statement.
The ministry’s order mandated upgrades to two sewage pumping stations and installation of backflow prevention devices at various locations by 2019.
The town completed the pumping-station upgrades six months past deadline and “installed only some of the backflow preventers required by the order,” according to the ministry.
After Atikokan supplied new information, the ministry eventually agreed that the municipality had installed enough backflow preventers as of May 14, 2024.
Last February the municipality was convicted of one violation of the Ontario Water Resources Act and fined $50,000 plus a victim fine surcharge of $12,500.
Atikokan was convicted on Oct. 4 of a second violation under the act and fined $10,000 plus a surcharge of $2,500.
