Treatment types of the wastewater systems in Canada subject to the Wastewater Systems Effluent Regulations

The Wastewater Systems Effluent Regulations (WSER), developed under the Fisheries Act, came into force in 2012 to manage wastewater releases by systems that collect an average daily influent volume of 100 cubic metres or more. The WSER also does not apply to any wastewater system located in the Northwest Territories, Nunavut and north of the 54th parallel in the provinces of Quebec and Newfoundland and Labrador. The WSER set national baseline effluent quality standards that are achievable through secondary wastewater treatment.

The map below presents the wastewater system locations in Canada and the type of treatment they utilize (mechanical, lagoon or no treatment). The data is based on the information submitted to Environment and Climate Change Canada as of November 2022. Note that this layer does not represent the level of wastewater treatment or whether the system complies with the WSER.

The map is available in both ESRI REST (to use with ARC GIS) and WMS (open source) formats. For more information about the individual reporting wastewater systems, datasets are available in either Excel or CSV formats at the resource listed below: “Wastewater Systems Effluent Regulations Reported Data”.

Data from Quebec and Yukon

The data for Quebec municipalities (after 2017) is provided to the department separately through the equivalency agreement that was finalized in October 2018. Beginning in 2015, the data reported for the Yukon is provided to the department separately through an equivalency agreement finalized in 2014.

More information on the wastewater sector including the regulations, agreements, contacts and resource documents is available at: https://www.canada.ca/wastewater