Ontario has finalized amendments to two regulations under the Environmental Protection Act, O. Reg. 406/19: On-Site and Excess Soil Regulation (Excess Soil Regulation) and O. Reg. 153/04 (Records of Site Condition Regulation), and the Rules for Soil Management and Excess Soil Quality Standards (Soil Rules).
I. Excess Soil Regulatory Amendments
Taking feedback into consideration on proposed amendments described in ERO 019-9196, which was posted from Oct. 18, 2024 to Nov. 21, 2024, Ontario has updated the Excess Soil Regulation and Soil Rules to enable greater reuse of excess soil, provide added flexibility in soil management options, and reduce costs for businesses.
The amendments to the Excess Soil Regulation and Soil Rules include:
- Exempting aggregate reuse depots from the requirement for a waste environmental compliance approval (ECA), subject to certain conditions. The depots must also comply with requirements governing waste management and the operation of the site.
- Enabling greater reuse of excess soil, aggregate and stormwater management pond sediment with asphalt-related standards exceedances in areas covered by asphalt, and greater reuse of excess soil and aggregate with naturally occurring exceedances of reuse standards.
- Allowing greater reuse of soil between similar infrastructure project areas and reuse sites of the same project leader or where the reuse site owner or operator is a public body.
- Removing reuse planning requirements (other than a notice in the Excess Soil Registry) for excess soil moved between infrastructure project areas and reuse sites with different owners or where the reuse site is not owned or operated by a public body.
- Allowing in-situ sampling of SWMP sediment to reduce sampling and storage, making sediment management more practical and less costly or time-consuming.
- Providing sampling frequency flexibility for parameters that are not anticipated at a site.
- Other clarifications, corrections and minor amendments.
More information on the finalized amendments may be found in the decision notice (ERO 019-9196) posted on the Environmental Registry. Links to the regulation as well as existing educational material can be found on MECP’s Handling Excess Soil website.
II. Records of Site Condition Regulatory Amendments
Taking feedback into consideration on proposed amendments described in ERO 019-9310, which was posted from Nov. 20, 2024 to Jan. 10, 2025, Ontario has made amendments to the RSC Regulation to:
- Prohibit the submission of an RSC for filing in the ministry’s RSC registry in specified circumstances when the RSC is not required by regulation and there is no identified risk of contamination, and as such it is not necessary support brownfields redevelopment; and
- Expand an existing exemption from the regulatory requirement to file an RSC in the RSC Registry, when changing the use of commercial and community use buildings to mixed use, with residential or other sensitive uses to enable faster redevelopment of these buildings to housing.
An educational document related to the RSC amendments and on alternatives to requesting an RSC has been included in the ERO posting.
If you have any questions or would like to discuss these amendments or other aspects of the Excess Soil Regulation or Records of Site Condition Regulation, please contact Reema Kureishy or Sanjay Coelho at MECP.LandPolicy@ontario.ca.
