 Begun in 2004 to incorporate the externalities of previously unaccounted-for environmental costs, the project soon produced results that were so much worse than anticipated that the program was quietly tabled in 2007.Firms facing the choice of either paying a given fine for their effluence into community streams, or spending ten times as much on waste treatment, usually opt to pay the fine and continue polluting.Provincial officials themselves complain that the fines are too low to enable them to enforce the federal regulations.