Residential waste eyed, too

By Bill Redekop
bill.redekop@freepress.mb.ca

Sun May 7 2006 - COTTAGERS and bedroom communities got off relatively unscathed in the new Water Protection Act but some changes are coming, says the province.

Government wants better residential waste management in the corridor between Winnipeg and Selkirk, particularly along Henderson Highway. Leaky septic fields have been a problem for years along the Red River north of Winnipeg.

There are discussions now between the City of Winnipeg and affected rural municipalities about possibly hooking up to the city's sewage treatment system, said Dwight Williamson, Water Stewardship Board director.

"The details still have to be worked out," Williamson said.

Williamson said some cottage owners along Lake Winnipeg, and likely some in Whiteshell Provincial Park, will have to change from septic fields to holding tanks, but probably not a large number, under new legislation passed Jan. 1.

And most bedroom communities around Winnipeg, where there are up to 10,000 septic fields according to government figures, are not affected by new legislation because they are not on highly-erodable Zone 4 land.

Manitoba Conservation data indicate about 150 new septic fields are installed in the capital region each year.

Meanwhile, phosphorous in the Winnipeg River has shot up 30 per cent since 1970. That's just on waters entering the province at the Manitoba-Ontario border. Williamson doesn't know the reason for the increase. Potential sources are northern Minnesota farms, the pulp and paper mill in Kenora, and cottagers on Lake of the Woods, he said.

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