The City of Montreal's controversial dumping of billions of litres raw sewage into the St. Lawrence River is coming to an end Saturday night.

Montreal Mayor Denis Coderre, said in a tweet on Saturday that the plan is being completed three days early. He also thanked Richard Fontaine, the city's head of waste water management, for his work.

The city began dumping the sewage into the river Wednesday in order to begin repairs on the support arches of one of the city's major sanitary sewers, as well as to relocate a snow chute.

Municipal officials said that all sewage will be treated by the end of Saturday night, now that all work on the sewage interceptor in the city's southeast is complete.

The interceptor was put back into service three days ahead of schedule. Officials initially expected the work to be completed early next week.

A 17-kilometre stretch of the interceptor was back in service on Friday, which meant that some of the raw sewage in that sector could be treated.

The city initially expected that eight billion litres of wastewater would be released into the St. Lawrence, but because work was completed in 89 hours, no more than 4.9 billion litres made its way into the waterway.

However, city officials are still asking people to avoid direct contact with the water.

Additional repairs also need to be to a snow collector, which means that some raw sewage will be dumped near the Old Port and Habitat 67.

The city said in a statement that initial results from water-quality tests taken during the week were "broadly consistent with expected values" in most areas.

A small group of protesters gathered at Montreal's Old Port to rally against the dump on Saturday. They voiced their concerns that the city went ahead with the plan despite a petition that garnered more than 90,000 signatures.

With files from CTV Montreal