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WINNIPEG — The head of Winnipeg’s water and waste department says the wrong default settings at a new treatment plant helped cause 10 million litres of sewage to spill into the Red River.
“The gates are supposed to be in manual mode, and they weren’t. They were automatic. So we’re investigating as to why,” said Tim Shanks at a press conference Tuesday.
The release of the sewage early Monday happed after the bypass gates opened automatically and no one noticed for almost three hours.
Shanks said the gates, which would generally only be used in rare instances like maintenance or major storms, had not yet been fully cleared as part of commissioning of the plant, which started operating in August.
He said there was no immediate risk to the public from the spill and that the city was waiting on testing results to see how it would affect the water quality of the river.
“Obviously we’re not happy about this,” said Shanks. “It’s a brand new plant.”
The city has already installed physical lockouts on the gates so that they can’t open automatically again, he said, and alarms will also be installed for them.
The spill is more than the 8.8 million litres of untreated sewage released from overflows in all of 2025, such as when the system is overwhelmed by heavy rains.
It is, however, much smaller than the worst spills on the city’s record.
In 2024, around 230 million litres of sewage leaked into the river after a major pipe broke, and it took well over a week to divert the flow.
In 2002, a malfunction at the North End plant released 427 million litres of untreated wastewater into the river.
The latest spill at the plant comes as the city is working through a more than $3-billion upgrade.
Last week, the federal government announced a $500-million commitment towards the third phase that would reduce phosphorus and other nutrients from flowing into the river.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 3, 2026.
Ian Bickis, The Canadian Press
