2011 Municipal Water Use Report – Municipal Water Use 2009 Statistics

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Survey highlights

The population served secondary wastewater treatment or better remains stable

Data on the level of treatment received by wastewater effluent is collected for the population that is connected to a sanitary sewer system in Canadian municipalities. In 2009, 1524 municipalities accounting for 28.1 million Canadians provided information on the number of people in their jurisdiction who were connected to a sanitary sewer system or who used private septic systems or sewage haulage. Of this population, a large majority (87.1%) is served by a piped sewer network, with 12.4% using private septic systems and 0.5% served sewage haulage.

As the 2009 MWWS only surveyed a sample of municipalities with population below 1000 people, and given that many small municipalities do not have sewer systems at all, it is likely that the total percent of Canadians using private septic systems and sewage haulage is somewhat higher than that reported here.

 

Table 3: Residential Sewage Disposal, by Province/Territory
and Municipal Population

  Number of responding municipalities Responding population Population served sewers Percent of the population that is served sewers Percent of the population that is on private septic systems Percent of the population that is on sewage haulage (holding tanks)
Newfoundland and Labrador 50 348 836 321 997 92.3% 7.7% 0.0%
Prince Edward Island 10 63 805 58 757 92.1% 7.9% 0.0%
Nova Scotia 31 791 001 535 846 67.7% 32.2% 0.1%
New Brunswick 63 402 541 351 319 87.3% 12.1% 0.6%
Quebec 542 6 182 520 5 385 542 87.1% 12.8% 0.1%
Ontario 241 11 948 830 10 457 340 87.5% 12.2% 0.2%
Manitoba 95 988 766 876 176 88.6% 9.2% 2.2%
Saskatchewan 187 696 621 642 644 92.3% 6.6% 1.1%
Alberta 180 3 481 798 3 104 981 89.2% 9.6% 1.2%
British Columbia 111 3 162 751 2 721 350 86.0% 13.4% 0.6%
Territories 14 55 391 42 322 76.4% 8.3% 15.3%
 
Municipal Population            
Under 1000 453 241 181 113 995 47.3% 48.8% 3.9%
1001–2000 296 430 794 230 173 53.4% 44.1% 2.5%
2001–5000 292 971 417 598 607 61.6% 36.5% 1.8%
5001–50 000 408 5 785 533 3 916 092 67.7% 31.2% 1.1%
50 001–500 000 65 9 560 467 8 730 643 91.3% 8.4% 0.3%
More than
500 000
10 11 133 468 10 908 761 98.0% 2.0% 0.0%
Total, 2009 1 524 28 122 860 24 498 272 87.1% 12.4% 0.5%
Total, 2006 1 314 28 177 339 24 880 590 88.3%*    

Source: 2009 MWWS. Aggregated to municipal level and imputed for non-response using 2006 MWWS. Sustainable Water Management Division, Environment Canada.

* The values for 2009 are not directly comparable with the results from 2006 due to a change in the way the data was analyzed. The 2009 results are based on the entire municipal population, while the 2006 results are based only on the population in municipalities that have sewer systems.

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Of the population connected to sanitary sewer systems, 78.7 % had their wastewater effluent treated at a secondary level or higher. Only 3.2 % received no treatment or preliminary treatment only (screening, grit removal) of their wastewater, while 18.1 % received primary treatment, 6.8 % received secondary treatment in waste stabilization ponds (sewage lagoons), 54.5 % received secondary-mechanical treatment and 17.4% received tertiary-level treatment.

The 2009 results show no significant changes since the 2006 survey cycle. The 2006 data showed 30.8% of the population receiving tertiary or advanced treatment and only 42.4% receiving secondary-mechanical treatment; however, these large differences compared to the 2009 results are due to a change in the way data was collected and classified rather than an actual change in treatment levels. In 2006, all treatment levels involving one or more “advanced” treatment techniques (see Glossary for more detail) were classified as “advanced/tertiary” while in 2009 the survey respondent had to choose between five categories only: none/preliminary, primary, secondary-WSP, secondary-mechanical and tertiary. Therefore, the tertiary category in 2009 contains only tertiary-level wastewater treatment.

Smaller municipalities are the most likely to have a greater percent of their population served by no wastewater treatment or preliminary treatment only. These two categories represent over 9% of the population in communities of 1000 to 2000 people and around 16% of the population in communities of less than 1000 people. Similarly, these small communities have the smallest percent of population served by tertiary-level treatment.

However, even in small municipalities, the majority of the population is served by secondary-level treatment. In communities of under 5000 people, secondary treatment is most often provided by waste stabilization ponds, while in communities of greater than 5000 people, secondary-mechanical treatment is more common.

 

Chart 9 : Wastewater Treatment Level, by Municipal Size Group

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The percent of population served by each level of treatment varies widely between provinces. Newfoundland and Labrador and the three territories have significant proportions of the population that are not served by any wastewater treatment or only by preliminary treatment. Primary treatment is prominent in Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia, Quebec, and, to a lesser extent, New Brunswick and British Columbia. Ontario and Manitoba’s populations are almost entirely served by secondary-mechanical treatment, while 78% of Alberta’s population is served by tertiary-level wastewater treatment.

 

Chart 10: Wastewater Treatment Level, by Province/Territory

 

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