Crown rankled by Fentie’s involvement in project

DAWSON CITY - Premier Dennis Fentie's meetings with federal ministers about a new sewage disposal system for Dawson border on interference, a court was told Monday.

DAWSON CITY - Premier Dennis Fentie’s meetings with federal ministers about a new sewage disposal system for Dawson border on interference, a court was told Monday.

Crown counsel John Cliffe made that assessment during the latest hearing into progress on its court-ordered secondary sewage treatment facility.

At the conclusion of the hearing on May 6 territorial court Judge Heino Lilles had expressed his disappointment with the lack of progress on the project since a March 6 referendum derailed the aerated sewage lagoon project at the junction of the Klondike Highway and Dome Road.

To a comment by Dawson’s lawyer, Tony Crossman, that the referendum had caused wasted time and the loss of $1.4 million in preparation, Lilles reminded him that “No one said democracy was cheap.”

Mayor John Steins referred to the period just after the vote as a kind of post-referendum hangover, conceding to Lilles that nothing much seems to have happened up to May 6. Steins felt progress has been made since the last hearing.

At that time, Lilles had ordered the town pursue two types of solutions with equal vigor: an alternate lagoon option and a mechanical plant option.

Testimony given by Crossman on Monday prompted Lilles to interrupt and remind Dawson and the territorial government of that detail in his ruling.

The judge was concerned that the government had shifted too completely to a new mechanical option, leaving the lagoon behind. He reminded YTG and Dawson officials that he had ordered the two solutions be given equal weight; that one was not to be seen as a back-up plan for the other.

The government is leaning toward a mechanical plant.

Most who spoke at Monday’s hearings seemed to feel Fentie’s direct involvement in the project is a good thing, indicating the degree of priority the government is giving to the situation.

However, Cliffe felt Fentie’s personal meetings with federal ministers on the file bordered on interference.

The executive branch ought not to be attempting to lessen the impact of a judicial decision, he said.

“The Crown has significant concerns with these approaches,” he said. “The court’s order is being disrespected.”

Lilles agreed this would not be proper if it was happening.

Until recently, he said, he had approved of Fentie’s personal involvement, but wasn’t so certain about some of the correspondence Cliffe quoted during Monday’s hearing.

Crossman’s presentation spoke of new technologies that would be cheaper to build, run and maintain than the previously designed sequencing batch reactor (SBR) plant.

In addition, the facility could be located next to the existing screening plant on land already zoned for industrial use - the former highways yard across Fifth Avenue from the Dawson City Museum.

In such an application, the study time under the Yukon Envirionmental and Socio-Economic Review Board would be substantially reduced.

If that option is chosen after a Request for Qualifications and Request for Proposals procedure that will take until early in 2009, the plant could be operating by 2011.

Lagoon options, on the other hand, would require a more intensive environmental screening review, take longer to build, and probably not be in place before 2013.

Both dates are completely outside Lilles’ original court order, which, as Cliffe repeatedly stressed, is now five years old and has a deadline of Dec. 31, 2008.

Cliffe dismissed much of Crossman’s mechanical option presentation as a “mystery”. He said no details would be available inside the court order framework.

Environment Canada has been pushing for the construction of the SBR plant, which was designed under the last town council mandate, but Lilles agreed with both Steins and Crossman that this option is too costly to be sustainable.

“That’s the only reason I’ve been allowing this to continue and extending the due date,” he said.

While Cliffe was not directly critical of the judge’s rulings, he did state compliance with the court order ought not “to be conditional on funding,” neither in the construction phase nor in the ongoing O&M.

If it was not possible to build a facility Dawson could afford to run, Cliffe hinted YTG should then consider a subsidy program for Dawson’s effluent treatment.

Cliffe also said communication between YTG and the federal departments involved has been lacking for seven months.

Seven months is about the time since the citizen’s group won the right, under the Municipal Act, to force the City of Dawson to hold a referendum on the lagoon site question. Neither the town nor YTG had the right to block the action once the petition demanding it was properly presented.

Cliffe did not agree with the reassigning of responsibilities on the territorial government side of the project.

It has been removed from the community services branch and given to the highways and public works department, both of which are now under the same minister, Archie Lang.

The Crown lawyer said he regretted the losses of Pat Molloy and Kris Sarson from the project team.

“It would appear that in the last seven months, we have been going backwards,” Cliffe said.

Currently, Cliffe said, Environment Canada had no clear idea who the project team is for Dawson’s secondary sewage treatment venture or what it would look like.

Nor was he convinced the project actually is a high priority for the government.

“We’re dealing with a mystery mechanical plant right now.”

In concluding the hearing, Lilles said he wanted an immediate end to any problems in communication. A positive response to this issue will be

a necessary precondition to any project deadline extension, he added.

The good news is Dawson was not immediately ordered to proceed with an unpalatable solution.

The bad news is the original deadline, no matter how impossible, is still in place.

The deadline will be dealt with at the next hearing on Oct. 28.