The Hudson's Bay Company punished after releasing toxins into St. Lawrence River

The Hudson's Bay Company, an iconic Canadian department store, has been officially branded an environmental offender.

Last week a Hudson's Bay Company store in Montreal was fined $765,000 for releasing 146 kilograms of toxic industrial chemicals into the environment, in violation of the Canadian Environmental Protection Act.

Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), used in electrical, hydraulic and other equipment since the 1920s, are known to have negative impacts on the health of aquatic ecosystems and the wildlife that feed on the organisms in them. The amount released by Hudson's Bay employees in May 2011 exceeded the legal limit by 146,000 times.

The Canadian department store was fined for the release of the chemicals, failing to notify the government as soon as possible after the leak, failure to take all possible measures to prevent the incident, and failure to submit its annual reports for 2008, 2009, and 2010 on time. Hudson's Bay maintains that it responded to the accident appropriately:

Tiffany Bourré, director of corporate communications for the Hudson's Bay, declined to provide details about how the accident occurred. A CBC article, however, reported that the electric transformers on the roof of the store broke, and employees swept some of the spilled PCBs down the drain. Forty eight kilograms ended up in the St. Lawrence river.

"Hudson's Bay Company is committed to continuously improving our environmental stewardship," said an email statement from Bourré. "HBC maintains that it took quick and transparent action in collaboration with all the appropriate environmental agencies 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 in matters related to environmental stewardship."

The company now will be added to Canada's Environmental Offenders Registry, and forced to establish an environmental management system, provide training on the legal consequences of violating environmental legislation to its Canadian managers, and publish an article on the facts surrounding the offences.

The $765,000 fine will be added to the federal Environmental Damages Fund, which is used for projects that benefit the environment.