Statement by LWF Executive Director Alexis Kanu on the South Winnipeg Sewage Spill

A sewage leak caused by a broken pipe and subsequent failures of a temporary bypass system has now spilled 228.1 million litres and counting of raw sewage into the Red River.

The governments of Winnipeg and Manitoba both have a role to play when it comes to our sewage infrastructure. As this spill drags on, I’m looking to our provincial government for answers. As Manitoba’s environmental regulator, I expect the province to explain the impact of this appalling failure of our sewage system. And I would like to hear from them about the consequences the City of Winnipeg will face as a result of this spill.

The ongoing sewage spill in south Winnipeg is horrifying – and with good reason. Raw sewage contains high concentrations of phosphorus, which drives the growth of algal blooms in Lake Winnipeg. Raw sewage also contains E. coli, fecal coliform and other pathogens with potential risk to human health. To our knowledge, no one is currently testing this leak so we don’t know what specifically is flowing into the river, and ultimately, into Lake Winnipeg.

This latest spill is a symptom of a broader problem, which is chronic delays in upgrading our sewage infrastructure. Winnipeg’s North End Water Pollution Control Centre is the city’s largest sewage treatment plant and the single-largest point source of phosphorus to Lake Winnipeg. Every day, the north end plant releases upwards of 150 million litres of undertreated sewage, which is not compliant with the 1 mg/L phosphorus limit first set out in its provincial operating licence back in 2005. In the month of December 2023 alone, the north end plant dumped 4, 419 million litres of undertreated sewage into the Red River. That’s almost 20 times the volume of this spill, coming out of a non-compliant treatment plant that should have been upgraded back in 2014.

It’s frustrating that time and time again, it seems that we wait until an emergency is upon us to get serious about our sewage infrastructure. We have been “planning” to upgrade our sewage infrastructure for literally decades. But we are not seeing results.

Together with our members, the Lake Winnipeg Foundation continues to advocate for accelerated phosphorus compliance at Winnipeg’s north end sewage treatment plant as a priority infrastructure upgrade. Most recently, we have urged Manitoba’s government to do its part to make this happen – specifically, through targeted financial investment and evidence-based changes to the facility’s operating licence.

We continue to closely monitor this ongoing situation.