Wastewater Systems Effluent Regulations 2017 Annual Report: Executive summary
This report provides a summary of the information submitted by owners and operators of Canadian wastewater systems under the Wastewater Systems Effluent Regulations (WSER) for the 2017 calendar year. This is the second annual report since the publication of the Regulations.
The WSER came into force in 2012 under the Fisheries Act to manage wastewater releases by systems designed to collect an average daily influent volume of 100 m3 or more. The WSER set national effluent quality limits that are achievable through secondary wastewater treatment and prohibit the discharge of effluent that is acutely lethal to rainbow trout.Footnote 1
These limits came into effect in January 2015. The regulations also specify requirements for carrying out effluent monitoring, reporting and record keeping.
Owners or operators of wastewater systems requiring time to upgrade in order to meet the WSER effluent quality limits had until June 2014 to apply for a transitional authorization to exceed the WSER effluent quality limits for a limited time. These authorizations were issued to 65 wastewater systems, expiring in 2020, 2030, or 2040. Dates for transitional authorizations were based on the level of risk determined by criteria set out in the WSER which takes into consideration effluent quality, volume and the receiving environment.
By the end of 2017, 1,881 wastewater systems out of an estimated 2,319 had submitted an identification report under the WSER. The majority (87%) of wastewater systems are owned by municipalities or other local governments. Lagoons make up more than half of the wastewater systems in Canada (56%), mechanical systems make up around a third (33%) and the remaining systems (11%) have no treatment.
Of the 1,881 systems that submitted identification reports, 1,556 submitted all required monitoring reports, with 29 systems failing to submit one or more report. A total of 1,218 systems did not report any exceedances of the effluent quality limits, while 365 systems reported at least one exceedance. A total of 474 systems tested for acute lethality with 424 systems (89%) reporting no failures and 50 systems (11%) reporting an acute lethality test failure.
A total volume of 5.68 billion m3 of effluent was discharged from a final discharge point for the 2017 calendar year. Of this total, 4.1 billion m3 (73%) met the WSER effluent quality limits, 1.5 billion m3 (26%) was undertreated and did not meet the limits, and 0.084 billion m3 (1%) of the effluent discharged underwent no treatment. These volumes do not include releases from combined sewer overflows (CSO), sanitary sewer overflows, or any other discharges occurring at a point other than the final discharge point.
In Canada, as of 2017, 179 systems had at least one CSO. A total reported volume of 167 million m3 of effluent was released from CSOs in 2017 which represents approximately 3% of the total volume of effluent released from wastewater treatment systems.
The WSER are enforced by Environment and Climate Change Canada. Compliance issues are followed-up on in accordance with the Compliance and Enforcement Policy for the Habitat Protection and Pollution Prevention Provisions of the Fisheries Act (Environment Canada 2001c).