National Pollutant Release Inventory (NPRI) reporting

An industrial or manufacturing buyer meets NPRI reporting while reviewing a plant’s environmental compliance file. Environment and Climate Change Canada says owners and operators of facilities that meet the NPRI reporting requirements published in the Canada Gazette, Part I have to report to the inventory. Whether a given facility meets them turns on the published criteria, and the department’s fact sheet also lists activities whose releases do not need to be reported.

How the duty arises

Section 46 of the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999 lets the Minister, for purposes that include creating an inventory of data, publish in the Canada Gazette a notice requiring any person described in the notice to provide information in that person’s possession or to which the person may reasonably be expected to have access. Under section 46, the notice must indicate the period during which it is in force, which may not exceed three years, and every person to whom a notice is directed shall comply with it, though the Minister may, on written request, extend the date for compliance. The department says the reporting is mandated by that Act and that reports are due every year by June 1.

What to check or ask

• Whether the facility met the published requirements in each year it operated, and who decided
• Copies of the reports filed and the dates they were filed
• Who owned or operated the facility when each report was due
• Whether any activity or substance changed since the last report

The manufacturing business buyer checklist places this among the other compliance records. For site contamination, see environmental liability.