Environmental law-Statutory protection of environment - Environmental offences - Availability of defences - Due diligence - General principles-Petitioner mining company held Permit to discharge treated effluent from its mining operation, and amendments to Permit imposed obligations on mining company to design and test systems to treat "mine influenced" water - Ministry inspected mine and issued several warning letters to mining company, notifying it that it was out of compliance with section 2.10 of Permit - Director issued notice prior to determination of administrative monetary penalty arising from mining company's non-compliance with section 2.10 of Permit - Director issued her determination on administrative penalty and mining company appealed to Environmental Appeal Board (Board) - Board dismissed mining company's appeal, and upheld $9,000 administrative monetary penalty - Mining company brought petition for judicial review - Petition dismissed - Here, although mining company characterized defence as defence of impossibility, in these circumstances impossibility was analogous to defence of due diligence - Board's analysis of mining company's legal argument and its application to facts in context of legislative scheme was transparent, intelligible, and had not been shown by mining company to fall outside range of possible, acceptable outcomes - Board's decision that impossibility defence was not available under administrative monetary penalty regime as set out in Environ-mental Management Act was correct - Common law defences of impossibility and due diligence applied in penal context, but not under Act - There was no other conclusion available to Board.
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