minister moyes dismisses 100 sewage appeals
Posted: September 9, 2026
Mike Moyes, Manitoba’s minister of Environment and Climate Change, has dismissed appeals submitted by more than 100 Manitobans under Manitoba’s Environment Act.
Responding to yet another provincial deadline extension for sewage treatment plant upgrades, the appeals called for:
- interim phosphorus compliance using the phosphorus-reduction system already in place at the North End Water Pollution Control Centre (NEWPCC). Using this system to reduce phosphorus pollution is critical to offset ongoing environmental impacts to Lake Winnipeg.
- increased transparency in reporting project progress and decision making to the public, noting that the legal requirement for a 30-day appeal period was significantly reduced when relevant documents were not posted to the provincial public registry until 18 days after the decision was made.
Despite the shortened appeal period, over 100 Manitobans expressed their concern with the province’s decision to extend NEWPCC’s compliance deadline for the third time. Imagine how many more Manitobans would have participated in this critical environmental decision-making process if the province had complied with the legislated requirement for a full 30-day appeal period?
why did the minister reject the appeal?
Our appeal asked the minister to mandate increased dosing of ferric chloride, so that the phosphorus limit of 1 mg/L could be achieved well in advance of the full upgrade deadline of 2032.
In rejecting the appeal, this minister cited limited sludge capacity at the aging treatment plant. The use of ferric chloride to pull phosphorus into the solid waste increases the volume of sludge at the treatment plant – a concern exacerbated by delays in provincial funding required to build new biosolids facilities.
LWF has heard this same sludge-capacity argument since 2018, when we first presented a design for a viable interim phosphorus-reduction system. The argument was initially used by city officials to oppose any requirement for additional interim measures, before these were mandated by the province.
But back in 2018, upgrades to NEWPCC hadn’t even started. In the intervening eight years, progress in replacing NEWPCC’s aging infrastructure has improved the efficacy of the interim phosphorus-reduction system.
replacing aging infrastructure improves phosphorus reduction
Construction on the first upgrade project, the headworks system, began in 2021. The headworks system screens debris and grit from the wastewater, preventing them from clogging up the rest of the treatment system. Where the old plant allowed towels and coffee cups and other street waste to flow into the treatment plant, the new headworks system can screen out corn kernels – gross, but good news for the treatment plant’s capacity.
The headworks project also included replacing the treatment plant’s UV system. The old UV system impeded ferric chloride dosing as the rust-coloured chemical coated the UV bulbs. But now, with an updated, efficient, self-cleaning UV system in place, treatment plant operators have increased one ferric chloride dosing point from 22% to 45% of the consultant’s recommended dose. In response to this higher ferric chloride dose, phosphorus levels dropped considerably.
With the new headworks project up and running as of August 26, 2026, we expect significant positive impacts on sludge capacity – enabling city officials to step up phosphorus-reduction efforts.
interim phosphorus-reduction measures offer a pollution stopgap
This solution was designed to offset ongoing phosphorus pollution from a treatment plant that should have been upgraded twelve years ago.
But now that the system is built, Minister Moyes and his department seem determined to ignore the pollution solution sitting right in front of them – apparently content to neither achieve nor enforce their own environmental rules.
We can hold our elected officials to a higher standard. That’s exactly what we did in 2019, when LWF members together raised our collective voice to push the province to mandate an interim phosphorus solution. Now, we need to push them to use it.