Whose sewage

A trailer park owner contacted us when a dispute arose about responsibility for the municipal sewage system servicing the park. She and her family had maintained the sewage collection part of the system for many years, on the understanding that they owned the property it was on, while the municipality maintained the treatment lagoon. However, the municipality had no documentation of this arrangement. When the Ministry of the Environment, Conservation and Parks updated the approval document for the sewage system, it accepted the municipality’s statement that it did not own the collection parts of the system. A later survey showed the sewage collection system was in fact located on municipal property. As a result of our intervention, the Ministry reminded its staff to verify similar claims by municipalities in future. We shared best practices with the municipality for how its processes and communications could be improved.