Law360 Canada ( November 21, 2017, 8:42 AM EST) -- Appeal by Lacombe County from an order declaring part of the bylaw regulating communal sanitary sewage collection systems invalid. The respondent and his wife owned a property in the County. In 2013, they had a private sewage disposal system installed. Waste went from their home by pipe into a tank under the property. Periodically, the respondent hired a waste haulage company to remove the waste from the tank and dispose of it. At the time that it was installed, no public sewage system was available. In 2015, the County enacted a bylaw to provide sewage collection services to residents in the respondent’s area. The bylaw required residents to connect to the County system and disconnect from any private systems. In addition, residents were required to pay the cost of connection to the sewage system. The respondent agreed to pay for a partial connection to the County sewage system, but refused to complete the connection by paying for the installation of a grinder pump. He then applied for a declaration that parts of the bylaw, which compelled owners to disconnect from any other sewage system and pay a service connection fee, were ultra vires. The chambers judge held that ss. 34 and 35 of the Municipal Government Act (Act) did not authorize the impugned provisions of the bylaw because they dealt with provision of utility services where the landowner requested them. She also found that s. 33 of the Act did not expressly authorize the County to prohibit the haulage company from taking away the respondent’s waste and did not implicitly authorize it to enact bylaws compelling the respondent to connect into the public system at his own expense. The chambers judge declared that to the extent the provisions of the bylaw purported to apply the overly broad interpretation of ss. 34 and 35 of the Act, they were struck down....