Excess Soil Management

Canadian provinces and territories require excess soil from development and infrastructure projects to be safely and sustainably managed to ensure the protection of communities and the environment, lower carbon emissions, and to reduce the amount of soil destined for landfills. Whether your goal is to reduce the amount of excess soil generated or to achieve compliance with regulations (e.g., Ontario Regulation 406/19), our environmental experts can support you to develop strategic plans and realize beneficial outcomes.

Featured Capabilities

The quality of excess soil generated by development projects can vary greatly (even within the same project) from background levels to highly impacted, which requires strict adherence to provincial and territorial regulations for management. As registered professionals, we prepare and supervise soil sampling plans, develop and implement soil tracking programs, and register soil movement as required (i.e., on the Excess Soil Registry in Ontario) for all sites mandated to comply with testing or reporting protocols set by provincial and territorial regulations.

GOT DIRT?
Understanding Terminology in Ontario's Excess Soil Regulations

Sustainability and Management Strategies

We develop strategies to manage both clean and contaminated materials sustainably, help identify potential beneficial reuse sites and/or disposal sites, and develop soil tracking systems and risk-based approaches for beneficial reuse, allowing for reduced costs of transporting excess soil and a reduction of the project’s carbon footprint.

Regulatory Compliance

We support you in complying with provincial and territorial regulations for managing excess soil from development projects across Canada, helping you advance your project without facing delays as well as keeping you in good standing with legislative bodies.

Risk Assessment

In many cases, excess soil may contain some level of contamination. Our team can use risk-based analysis to ensure that this soil is re-used in a sustainable manner with no adverse effects to the natural environment. In Ontario, the Beneficial Reuse Assessment Tool (BRAT) was developed by the Ministry of the Environment, Conservation and Parks (MECP) with stakeholder input and can be utilized by a WSP Qualified Person (QP) to develop site-specific excess soil quality standards through a streamlined approach.

Excess Soil Management Plan

Our team can help design a sustainable approach to the management of excess soil and construction materials. This may involve on-site reuse, importation of materials, and removal of both clean and contaminated materials. Our Qualified Persons will collaborate with a project design team to prepare a tailored Excess Soil Management Plan. This includes the Excess Soil Planning documents required in Ontario under O.Reg. 406/19.

Clients We Help

Contractors

By leveraging WSP’s size and internal database of current projects with either excess soil fill or import requirements (source and reuse sites), we can support your efforts to tactfully relocate excess soil from your project site to disposal sites or nearby reuse sites. WSP’s collaborative environment allows for network connections of clients and projects that offer added opportunities to sustainably and effectively source or dispose of excess soil, allowing for reduced schedule delays, costs, and carbon footprint.

Developers

Provincial and territorial regulations require strict compliance around excess soil management which can be challenging to navigate due to the varying circumstantial requirements. WSP’s Qualified Persons have extensive experience handling excess soil and developing sustainable management strategies for projects across regions and can support projects ranging from small to large, complex operations in complying with regulations such as Ontario’s new On-Site and Excess Soil Management Regulation (O.Reg. 406/19).

Municipalities

We help municipalities consider regional excess soil mandate measures at the outset of projects to avoid schedule delays and prevent unforeseen costs. Our Qualified Persons have expertise in preparing compliance policies and standard operating procedures (SOPs) to help municipalities navigate regulations, and discover and capitalize on sustainable opportunities that involve treating excess soil as a resource instead of waste.

Infrastructure

With a number of unique challenges and circumstances, infrastructure projects require dedicated, knowledgeable, and experienced Qualified Persons. Whether the project is a road resurfacing project, culvert replacements, or a complex undertaking, we have the credentials and previous project experience to help you navigate all aspects of the excess soil requirements.