Nature’s Blueprint for Cleaner Water.

MAGNA Engineering is helping drought-stressed communities safeguard their wastewater systems with resilient, natural treatment solutions.

The Opportunity

Extreme weather is putting enormous pressure on wastewater infrastructure. Across Western Canada and the Pacific Northwest, prolonged droughts are driving down river flow rates and threatening both municipal treatment systems and agricultural water supplies. Many communities rely on lagoon systems that store wastewater for months before discharge — but during dry seasons, regulators often prohibit release due to the high concentration of nutrients like ammonia and phosphorus, posing serious risks to aquatic ecosystems. The result is mounting pressure on already overburdened systems — and no safe or sustainable path forward for discharge or reuse.

The Challenge

MAGNA Engineering developed the Lagoon Augmentation – MAGNA Biofilter Wetland System (LA-MBWS) to directly address this growing crisis. Building on its full-scale MBWS™ already in operation in Leslieville, Alberta, the LA-MBWS is a smaller, modular wetland polishing system that integrates with existing lagoons to improve effluent quality and support discharge even during drought. Using a multi-stage natural process, the system is odour-free, low-energy, and highly effective across seasons. By harnessing native plants, bacteria, and engineered flow dynamics, the LA-MBWS mimics nature’s ability to clean water without the complexity or cost of traditional mechanical systems. The design is robust, scalable, and significantly more affordable to operate — but to accelerate adoption, MAGNA needs to validate this smaller system in a real-world municipal setting.

NPC’s Solution

NPC’s Proof of Concept Program will demonstrate LA-MBWS’ ability to meet discharge requirements in a tailored community system. The work includes ongoing community engagement, refinement of the preliminary system design, and the development of a detailed workplan for implementation. This step is critical to MAGNA’s broader vision: enabling communities to safely discharge treated effluent or repurpose it for irrigation even during drought. Successful demonstration will validate the technology and also provide a model for expedited approvals, positioning MAGNA as a national and international leader in drought-resilient wastewater treatment.