Sunrise Propane Clean Up Compliments of the City of Toronto
I’m going to be re-introducing a mix to my writings to allow me to speak about some of the other issues that concern me in addition to Toronto Hydro proposed wind project.
In August, I wrote about the Sunrise Propane explosion “Sunrise – Prospective just over a week in”. My commentary included concerns that Mayor Miller opted to stay away and left Councillor Carroll to manage the City of Toronto’s response. I also raised concerns about a lack of intergovernmental cooperation, the lack of leadership from Sunrise Propane and finally concerns about the City’s decision to initiate the clean up prior to engaging whomever Sunrise’s insurance provider was.
On August 20th 2008 I said:
“Who Pays for the Clean Up?
Finally and of most concern to many — the City taking over the clean up efforts of the community. Yes the City of Toronto has an interest in ensuring the community is cleaned up, but on who’s dime? Sunrise
must have had a pretty serious accident liability policy and by stepping in so soon the City may have put the taxpayer on the hook with no ability to re-claim this money from the insurance company. I
only hope the Legal Department and not the political and senior management alone made this decision with that in mind. The clean up should not be on the backs of tax payers and should be the liability
of Sunrise. Only time will tell us how this plays out.
Politically this may be as important for the Mayor and Council.”
Today, the Toronto Star confirmed my concern from August to be true. The City of Toronto is now responsible for a million dollars in clean up cost, in addition to $900 000 that the Province of Ontario will pick up. For a City that is chronically short of money, and in a situation where a company was totally at fault and very likely had a major liability policy – this is an unnecessary expense that could have been avoided by engaging the insurer prior to initiating the clean up. Considering Sunrise is still operating, even if their insurance provider won’t cover it, there is no reason why they shouldn’t be expected to.
A million dollars represents about five hundred homes entire property tax bill. It is a needless waste of the hard earned money of Torontonians and the City should try to recoup this money before blindly accepting the bill. Considering Sunrise propane appears to still be operating within the City of Toronto, I see no reason why the City could not try to recoup the cost of the clean up from the company itself. What kind of message are we sending if we allow a company to cause millions of dollars in damage to our City and get off without penalty? Perhaps as a policy, the City should refuse business licenses to corporations like Sunrise who cause the City to incur these costs. It’s probably illegal to do that, but could you imagine Sunrise trying to justify why it was unfair for the City to prevent them from operating a business within Toronto – recognizing what Sunrise’s irresponsibility has cost the City?
Tags: City of Toronto, Sunrise Propane, Sunrise Propane Clean Up
March 25th, 2009 at 2:55 pm
Hello. My name is Earl Peterson of Gillette in the great state of Wyoming. I just wanted to take a moment to give my account of how a company called EarthWise Technologies in Yelm, Washington saved me a bundle on my propane costs this winter season. Up here in Gillette we get your standard winter of 1 – 2 ft. of snow fall & temperatures in the teens. However, this season was especially cold with the average being -5 below. The locals at our feed store last fall were all a hummin’ of rumors of a 70% increase in our home propane costs before the onset & our home heating town hall meetings were a thing of character and futility as most of us old timers didn’t even know how we were going to survive the brutal Wyoming winter. Social Security simply doesn’t stretch as far as we figured it would when we were young & workin’ our share of the world. Anyhow, my best friend Jed and I were a gabbin’ one fall day about how we were gonna live when he mentioned getting some space heaters, those high tech infrared types. Now I didn’t really know much about those things and told him my grandson, the internet whiz, could help me look all that up. Boy I tell you what, there are so many confounded choices it just makes your head spin. There are ones with all sorts of interestin’ claims & even some that those Amish make (yeah, like I believe that hog wash). But my grandson showed me how to search all those opinion sites that tell me how it is from real folks like you & I. From all the hoopla I found that the CZ Infrared models have the longest warranty, best return policy, and if something does happen after you purchase it…they have the best customer service of any of those other yahoo’s out there. I could tell you how when I bought 4 CZ 1500P heaters for my 2 – story 1500 sq. ft. home to survive the winter months that I saved an average of $250.00 per month in propane by turning my thermostat down to 60 degrees and using my heaters, 2 per floor, to heat my home up to a comfortable 75 degrees F. I could tell you how stylish and quiet these units are even when used constantly or how the technology allows each unit to regularly power off to simply maintain the room temperature set. I could even tell you how safe these units are that my little grandchildren can play right next to the one in our den without getting hurt or burned in the slightest. I could honestly tell you many things; however, I only became a true believer when I searched those opinion sites and finally bought some to see for myself. So I encourage you to check out all them reviews & finally buy one to see for yer self how much you can safe over the length of a grueling winter, like ours here in Gillette. I so far have saved ‘bout $780.00 this season over what I would’ve paid without ‘em. Stay warm and god bless.