{"id":497558,"date":"2026-02-25T01:58:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-25T01:58:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/497558\/"},"modified":"2026-02-25T01:58:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-25T01:58:09","slug":"st-johns-still-waiting-for-approval-from-ottawa-to-dump-snow-in-harbour","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/497558\/","title":{"rendered":"St. John\u2019s still waiting for approval from Ottawa to dump snow in harbour"},"content":{"rendered":"

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The City of St. John\u2019s is still waiting for explicit permission from the federal government to dump its mountains of snow in the harbour.<\/p>\n

More than 165 cm of snow has accumulated in the city throughout February, and many people in the metro region say they have nowhere left to put it.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The harbour could solve that problem, according to Mayor Danny Breen. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt does help us clean up faster. It’s more efficient if we have access to the harbour,\u201d Breen said Tuesday evening.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"AThe City of St. John’s used to dump snow in the harbour freely before Ottawa banned the practice in 2019 due to environmental concerns. (CBC)<\/p>\n

However, he said the city needs approval from the federal government to dump snow in the harbour.<\/p>\n

St. John\u2019s used to have that access until the federal government imposed a ban in 2019 due to environmental concerns. Special permission was given during Snowmageddon in 2020.\u00a0<\/p>\n

St. John’s East MP Joanne Thompson told CBC News in an interview Tuesday afternoon that she understands the need to dump snow in the harbour in order to clean it up quickly for public safety, but she said the decision lies with Environment and Climate Change Canada.<\/p>\n

WATCH | MP Joanne Thompson explains harbour dumping request:\"\"<\/p>\n

The City of St. John\u2019s wants to dump snow in the harbour. Here’s what Ottawa has to say about that request<\/p>\n

After multiple snowstorms, St. John\u2019s Mayor Danny Breen wants to clear some of the mountains into St. John\u2019s Harbour. St. John\u2019s East MP Joanne Thompson, who is also the federal fisheries minister, explains the status of that request. <\/p>\n

Later Tuesday evening, Thompson\u2019s office said federal permits were not required.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe federal government is not going to stand in the way of the city\u2019s operations, they can and should do whatever is necessary to make sure the roads are passable,\u201d press secretary Ira Khedkar told CBC News. <\/p>\n

But Breen said the city does require Ottawa’s approval. He said the city was still in discussions with Thompson’s office Tuesday evening, and the number of departments involved was complicating the situation.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is taking a bit of time,\u201d said Breen. \u201cWe’re going to continue those discussions this evening and hopefully tomorrow we can have this straightened out.\u201d<\/p>\n

Download our free CBC News app<\/a> to sign up for push alerts for CBC Newfoundland and Labrador. Sign up for our daily headlines newsletter here<\/a>. Click here to visit our landing page<\/a>. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Listen to this article Estimated 2 minutes The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":497559,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194295],"tags":[49,48,20739],"class_list":["post-497558","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ottawa","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-ottawa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/497558","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=497558"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/497558\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/497559"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=497558"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=497558"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=497558"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}