Ontario's Ministry of Environment, Conservation and Parks (MECP) has issued the City of Hamilton a provincial officer's order to improve the way it inspects its sewage system, after the recent discovery of two massive spills. The two spills saw an estimated combined total of 396 million litres of wastewater flow into Lake Ontario since 1996. The order, issued on Jan. 18, isn't the audit of the entire sewage system that the province's environment minister said in late November he asked for — but the order does criticize the city's current procedures and offers a timeline for the city to review and improve how it monitors its sewage system.