The Robert O. Pickard Environmental Centre used to take waste from recreational vehicles. It doesn’t anymore. As far as I can tell, nobody told the people who relied on it.
What I know
I was at the gate of the Pickard Centre. A security guard told me, point blank, that it no longer accepts waste from RVs.
That’s firsthand, but a guard at a gate isn’t a City notice. So I looked for something on the record. The best I found is a single Campendium review, posted June 23, 2026, saying the dump station stopped operating as of November 30, 2025.[1] If that’s right, the service has been gone for most of a year.
Meanwhile, the same Campendium listing still shows weekday hours, and another directory still lists Pickard as a free dump station.[1][3] The City’s own description of the service, as copied onto a campground host page, promised free RV disposal on weekdays from 8:00 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., with City staff escorting you to the discharge point and no flushing water supplied.[2] I could not find a current City notice announcing that this ended.
What the record shows
| Question | Source | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Pickard no longer takes RV waste | Guard at the gate (my visit) | Firsthand, not official |
| It ended Nov. 30, 2025 | One Campendium review, June 2026 [1] | Single user report |
| Directories still show it as open and free | Campendium, RVing Life [1][3] | Confirmed (out of date) |
| The City announced the change | — | Not found |
| Why it ended | — | Not found |
| Temporary or permanent | — | Not found |
| A replacement or recommended alternative | — | Not found |
“Not found” means I found nothing in my searches. It does not mean no such record exists.
So where do RV owners go?
The nearby options in the directories are mostly campgrounds, and the distances add up. Late October makes it worse: one directory notes that nearly every seasonal station shuts off its water from mid-October to mid-May.[3]
Distances are the directory’s figures from its Ottawa reference point, converted from miles to kilometres. They are not measured from any one address. Fee labels come from the same directory and may be out of date. Several of these are campgrounds that may limit dumping to guests or close for winter, so call ahead.[3]
Other places manage this
Gatineau runs a free RV dump at its own wastewater treatment plant. According to user check-ins, you call ahead, and a staff member comes out to confirm you’re an RV. One user reports that the call-ahead rule exists because commercial haulers had been dumping large volumes of raw sewage there.[4] That is one user’s account, not an official statement. A Gatineau wastewater bylaw on file with Quebec’s environmental review office also deals with the discharge of RV waste into the city’s treatment works, so the city regulates it.[5]
Closer to home, the small municipality of Mississippi Mills runs a free RV disposal station in Almonte. It’s self-serve, and users fill out a short online form each time.[6] It’s seasonal, May 15 to October 15, which is why it’s no help to anyone this week.
The point isn’t that these are perfect. They show that a municipality can keep this service going and manage the abuse risk without ending it.
What a fix could look like
A basic RV dump is a drain, a concrete pad and a rinse hose. Ottawa’s old arrangement didn’t even supply flushing water.[2] If the concern is security or staff time at a major treatment plant, one obvious question is whether a station could sit outside the gatehouse, or at a lower-risk City site such as a public works yard. I don’t know the site constraints: sanitary connection, spill containment, room for rigs to queue off Green Creek Drive. The City does, and it should be able to say whether it looked at this.
Questions the City should answer
- When did Pickard stop accepting RV waste, and where was that announced?
- Why did it end? Was it cost, staffing, security, abuse by commercial haulers, or a regulatory or operational constraint?
- Is the closure temporary or permanent?
- Was a station outside the gatehouse, or at another City site, considered? What would it cost?
- What does the City recommend for RV owners in the meantime?
Anyone can send these to 311. If the answers are slow or vague, an access-to-information request under MFIPPA can pull the briefing notes and emails behind the decision.
Why this matters
The Pickard Centre treats the wastewater of more than 90% of Ottawa’s population, over 900,000 people.[7] That’s the output. This is the outcome for the people who used the RV service: a free service that vanished, a gate that turns them away, and directories that still send them there.
There may be a good reason for the closure. But ending a small, free service with no visible notice and no stated alternative is a process failure on its own, whatever the reason turns out to be.
References
- Campendium, “Robert O. Pickard Environmental Centre RV Dump” (listing and user reviews; review dated June 23, 2026). maps.campendium.com/ca/on/places/robert-o-pickard-environmental-centre-rv-dump-on
- Harvest Hosts, Ottawa host page quoting the City of Ottawa’s description of RV waste acceptance at ROPEC (free, weekdays 8:00 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., staff escort, no flushing water). Third-party copy; I could not locate the current City page. harvesthosts.com/hosts/ontario/2CEECN0FdZUhEp4wY9HG
- RVing Life, “RV Dump & Sani-Dump Stations In Ottawa, Ontario” (source of the distances, fee labels and the winter-shutoff note). rvinglife.com/ontario-ottawa-rv-dumpsite
- iOverlander, “Station d’epuration de Gatineau | Sanitation Dump Station” (user check-ins). ioverlander.com/places/99141-station-d-epuration-de-gatineau
- Ville de Gatineau, wastewater and sludge discharge bylaw excerpt (BAPE archives). archives.bape.gouv.qc.ca … DA7.pdf
- Municipality of Mississippi Mills, “RV Disposal Station.” mississippimills.ca/municipal-services/water-and-sewage/rv-disposal-station
- Wikipedia, “Robert O. Pickard Environmental Centre” (800 Green Creek Drive; serves over 90% of Ottawa’s population). en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_O._Pickard_Environmental_Centre
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