Disposal at sea: service standards and fees

We issue permits for the disposal of non-hazardous substances into the sea. We have service standards and fees for the timely processing and delivery of your disposal at sea permit, as well as for disposal site monitoring.

Application and payment procedures 

The changing landscape of the COVID-19 pandemic has affected the processing of disposal at sea fees by cheque and credit cards. Please follow the procedures below for electronic payments to ensure we can continue to assess and issue your permit.

Prior to submitting a permit application or any payment for a permit (application or permit fee) please contact your regional Disposal at Sea Program office to obtain:

1. A permit number
2. Name of your permit officer
3. Instructions for electronic funds transfer (EFT) payment (wire transfer or direct deposit)

For tracking purposes, the following must be completed to ensure your EFT payment is received by the intended program with Environment and Climate Change Canada:

• Your EFT description field must contain one or more of the following:
  • permit number
  • name of your permit officer
  • type of payment (application fee, first or second half of permit fee)
• Most importantly, after your payment, you must send your EFT Remittance via email to immersion-disposalatsea@ec.gc.ca and ec.lerecouvrementdesCD-ARCollections.EC@ec.gc.ca. The banking institutions do not send this information to the EFT recipient, is it only sent to the originator of the payment.

No cheques should be mailed to your regional office.

If you already have a permit number and name of the permit officer, and wish to pay the permit fee, please follow the same process. Your application form and other associated documents are to be sent to us as usual, according to the guidance for applying for a permit.

Fees for disposal at sea permits

A non-refundable application fee must accompany every application.

A permit fee is payable for every 1000 cubic metres (m³) of dredged or excavated material to be disposed as follows:

• the first half is due prior to publication of the permit in the Canadian Environmental Protection Act (CEPA) Registry
• the second half is due at the halfway point of validity of your permit.

As required by the Service Fees Act, an increase is applied each year on April 1 in accordance with the previous year’s Consumer Price Index. Effective April 1, 2023, fees will increase by 6.8% as follows:

Application and permit fees for each permit will be at the rate applicable on the date you submit your application. Where a refund is payable upon expiry of the permit, it will be paid out at the same rate at which you paid your permit fee.

Service standards

When you apply for a disposal at sea permit, a decision on the application will be made:

• within 90 days after you have been advised in writing that your application is complete, or
• in the case of a permit renewal, within 45 days after you have been advised in writing that your application is complete.

Where additional information and any further consultation are required during the application assessment process, the review timeline will be suspended until the information has been provided and any consultation completed. An additional 14 days is required for publishing the permit on the CEPA Registry.

We also commit to timely processing and notification of permit fee payments:

• within 45 calendar days, we will acknowledge receipt of your payment

Pursuant to the requirements of the Service Fees Act, ECCC will remit to applicants a portion of their fees if ECCC fails to meet the applicable performance standard.  For full details, please see the Remission Policy for Service Fees.