The Manitoba government has backed down from its plans to eliminate sewage ejectors.
Last fall, the province introduced regulations requiring homeowners to replace sewage ejectors with a septic field or other waste disposal system when they sold their property.
However, the government amended those rules earlier this month and will now allow homeowners to keep existing sewage ejectors when the home is sold, as long as the property isn’t in an environmentally sensitive area and the system is on a lot 10 acres or larger.
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A provincial inspector would have to approve the suitability of the location.
The Association of Manitoba Municipalities applauded the government’s decision to alter the sewage disposal rules.
“The proposed amendments make the regulation far more manageable for everyone,” said association president Doug Dobrowolski.
“The current regulation created a great deal of uncertainty and would have imposed a harsh financial burden on municipal ratepayers.”
The province’s initial regulations, introduced last September, provoked the ire of hundreds of rural residents, who called the sewage ejector ban unnecessary because the systems have worked fine for many decades.
Sewage ejector systems, also known as open discharge in Alberta and jet disposal in Saskatchewan, pump waste water from the home into a holding tank, where suspended solids drop to the bottom. The gray water is then pumped through an underground hose and ejected onto land at a specific site.
Despite the regulatory changes, the Manitoba government will maintain its ban on the installation of new sewage injectors because of concerns about high fecal coliform levels in discharged waste water.
