Frequently asked questions

Is this the official Federal Contaminated Sites Inventory?

No. This is an independent, unofficial interface to the Government of Canada's open data. The authoritative record is the official FCSI published by the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat. Always verify details there before relying on them.

How current is the data?

The upstream export is checked every Monday and this site is rebuilt whenever it changes. The current data was published by the Government of Canada on August 3, 2026. The map header always shows both the publication date and when the source was last checked.

Does a site in the inventory mean the land is dangerous?

Not by itself. The inventory spans everything from suspected sites that testing later cleared, to closed sites already remediated, to active high-priority sites. Look at the site's status, its classification (see the glossary), and its step in the 10-step process before drawing conclusions.

Why does a site have no location on the map?

Coordinates are missing or withheld for some records in the source data — currently 924 of 24,426 sites. Those sites still appear in the filters, results list, summary pages, and CSV exports.

What is FCSAP?

The Federal Contaminated Sites Action Plan, the Government of Canada's dedicated program (since 2005) for assessing and remediating federal contaminated sites. Of the $10.85B in total reported expenditures in the inventory, $4.77B is flagged as FCSAP-funded. Use the "FCSAP-funded only" filter to isolate those sites.

Can I download the data?

Yes, two ways: use Export CSV on any filtered result set for exactly the sites you're looking at, or download the complete official export from the Government of Canada under the Open Government Licence.

Why do expenditure totals differ from other published figures?

Figures here are simple sums of the per-site annual amounts in the inventory for fiscal years 1993-1994–2025-2026, in nominal dollars. Departmental reports and public accounts may use different scopes, periods, program boundaries, or inflation adjustments.

I found an error — where do I report it?

If the error is in the underlying data, it belongs to the custodian department's reporting and is best raised through the official FCSI contact channels. If it's a problem with this site — a bug, a mistranslation, a broken page — open an issue on the GitHub repository.