Reality TV star slapped with fine
WHITEHORSE — A reality TV star in Yukon has been ordered to pay $31,000 in fines for violating the territory’s Waters Act.
Tony Beets was sentenced in Whitehorse last week after being convicted in May on charges of improperly disposing of waste and failing to report improper disposal.
Mining company Tamarack Inc., which includes Beets as a director, was convicted of the same charges and two counts of failing to comply with a water licence.
The matter went to court after a sub-contractor poured gasoline on a dredge pond and set it on fire in October 2014 during filming of the Discovery Channel show Gold Rush.
A clip from the episode was played in a Whitehorse courtroom during the trial in April, showing gasoline being poured into a pond in Dawson City where a piece of mining equipment sits. A torch is then thrown and the water lights on fire. In the 30-second clip shown in court, a narrator says Beets is giving the equipment, called a dredge, a “Viking baptism to change its luck.”
The incident came to light when the episode aired in February 2015. Yukon received a complaint from Environment Canada enforcement officers in Yellowknife.
In sentencing Beets, territorial court Judge Peter Chisholm said the experienced miner could have prevented the stunt, but didn’t.