A Sewer Use Bylaw was…

A Sewer Use Bylaw was promoted and expected by MECP in the late 1980's to protect municipal storm sewers & the natural environments which receive storm sewer discharges and as well as protect municipal sanitary sewers and sewage treatment plants. The MECP created a Model Sewer Use Bylaw in the late 1980s with sanitary sewer limits (and no specific storm sewer limits) and slowly municipalities began to adopt the Bylaw and MECP provided an overall support function and research body to emerging municipal sewer issues for provincial consistency. I

In the early-mid 1990's the government's in power at that time slowly diminished and eliminated the MECP provincial team that supported municipal sewer use bylaw staff and emerging issues and left the municipalities to figure things out on their own with limited research and assessment capabilities. This resulted in a hodge podge of sewer use bylaws which developers of housing can't understand are different and creating different rules in different municipalities

In Toronto, the Manganese (Mn) storm limit is set at the same rate as the drinking water standard and was done so in the late 1990's during amalgamation where it was encouraged to have a plethora of storm limits to obtain Federal funding for Pollution Prevention. As the municipality didn't know how to set a limit for Mn, it chose the drinking water standard. This is impacting the ability of groundwater in foundation drains to be diverted into the storm sewer and therefore groundwater was placed into the sanitary sewer tying up valuable sanitary sewer capacity. It is important to note that releases from municipal storm sewers into the natural environment could place the municipality at risk with MECP and its environmental legislation, as well as the Federal Gov't through its Fisheries Act, hence the precautionary approach by municipalities.

MECP should address the pressures the municipalities are experiencing around construction dewatering and permanent foundation drainage to sewers by bringing back a dedicated and centralized team researching and determining storm sewer limits for municipalities, and appropriate policy on foundation drainage assessment, without it, municipalities are left to create whatever limits they wish to protect themselves from MECP and the Federal government. This in turn ties up valuable sanitary sewer capacity and restricts housing development or imposes significant construction costs on housing developments that are passed onto the purchasers.

As an example of municipalities doing their own thing under the Sewer Use Bylaw, Toronto Water created a new 2022 foundation drainage policy tied into its Sewer Use Bylaw, without stakeholder consultation or input from City Council, and the policy/bylaw does not allow foundation drainage to sewers thereby significantly restricting housing development within Toronto. The Planning Division won't allow above grade parking and Toronto Water now won't allow groundwater to sewer through foundation drains because of its policy. A centralized provincial overview would help housing development without these conflicting municipal approaches.