The Village of Daajing Giids has been ordered by Environment and Climate Change Canada to fix its failing wastewater treatment system and meet federal standards by 2030.
The Fisheries Act enforcement direction, signed in July, follows nearly a decade of chronic exceedances at the village’s wastewater plant. Unlike past warnings, the new order is legally binding. It sets deadlines, requires regular progress reports and threatens heavy fines if the village does not comply.
Bearskin Bay, where the village discharges, is home to salmon runs including Chinook, chum, coho, pink and sockeye. Federal officers concluded that untreated and partially treated sewage poses risks to fish through oxygen-depleting substances, ammonia, pathogens and solids.
Quarterly reports show that from 2016 to 2022, effluent levels of suspended solids and carbonaceous biochemical oxygen demand (cBOD) were consistently two to nine times higher than the 25 milligrams per litre legal limit. The average across those years was 113.7 mg/L for cBOD and 146 mg/L for suspended solids.
Written warnings were issued in 2021 and 2023, but the problems persisted into 2023 and 2024. Tests in May 2025 again showed exceedances, with suspended solids at 103 mg/L and cBOD at 78 mg/L, still more than four and three times the limits. The warning explains that the acting CAO and Public Works Superintendent Ben Greenough told federal officers earlier this year that the grinder in the current system is not operating and that a vacuum truck has been used as a temporary measure to remove solids.
Federal officers had long documented the village’s non-compliance, but the July 2025 direction marked a shift. Warnings can be ignored. A Fisheries Act enforcement direction cannot. The order compels Daajing Giids to act, sets strict reporting requirements and makes clear that failure could bring penalties ranging from $500,000 to $6 million on indictment, or $100,000 to $4 million on summary conviction for municipalities.
The direction requires Daajing Giids to add secondary treatment through a staged approach and be in full compliance by Dec. 31, 2030. The village must submit a written implementation plan and timeline this fall, provide progress reports every six months starting in 2026, and deliver a final implementation plan by June 2027 with engineering drawings, design capacity and commissioning date.
At its Sept. 3 meeting, Daajing Giids council confirmed that $20 million in grant funding has been secured for wastewater upgrades. The council has two committees that are actively working on helping oversee the work and formally began project planning in January 2025, launching a roadmap of advisory meetings, site studies and town halls. That timeline highlights the gap between years of warnings and the recent start of serious planning.
Daajing Giids is not the first Canadian municipality to face this kind of order. Other B.C. communities including Squamish, the Sunshine Coast and Metro Vancouver’s North Shore have been pushed to replace or upgrade their plants. Similar cases have been documented in Ontario towns such as Cornwall and Westport.
On Haida Gwaii, however, the focus is squarely on Bearskin Bay and the health of local salmon. The federal order makes clear that Ottawa expects Daajing Giids to finally bring its system up to standard.
For Daajing Giids, the order sets a hard deadline after nearly a decade of documented violations. With funding in place and committees now steering the project, the challenge is to move quickly from planning to construction. Ottawa’s direction leaves little room for delay: by 2030, Bearskin Bay must no longer carry the burden of untreated sewage, and the village will be judged on whether it can deliver the upgrades needed to protect local waters and salmon runs.
