VANCOUVER – The Metro Vancouver regional district says a malfunction at a sewage treatment facility led to the release of wastewater into the Strait of Georgia.
The district says in an email that the discharge happened Thursday afternoon when screening equipment at the Iona Island Wastewater Plant was jammed by rocky debris.
It says the jam was due to an unusually high volume of debris coming through the system, and crews were immediately dispatched to release the blockage.
Seal pups are released back into the ocean from Iona Beach in Richmond, B.C., Tuesday, Dec. 18, 2018. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jonathan Hayward
The repairs on three of the plant’s six screens at the plant have been completed, and the district says the diversion of wastewater into the ocean ended about three hours after it began.
The district says the wastewater was released through a deepsea outfall that releases seven kilometres offshore, “not at Iona Beach or Musqueam,” and early modelling shows no public health impacts although monitoring is ongoing.
It also says full restoration work at the plant is still underway, and a review into what led to the discharge will be conducted after the repairs are all completed.
This is the second sewage spill in the Strait of Georgia since the end of May, when a sewer leak from a pump station in Comox dumped millions of litres of raw sewage into the water.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 3, 2026.