HAINES JUNCTION – Municipal leaders across the Yukon are truly afraid the territorial government is pushing them into a very uncomfortable corner with new landfill regulations.

Some even spoke of refusing to sign operating permits with the government and locking the dump gates, at least until they've had a chance to meet with the most senior bureaucrats to hash things out.

Carmacks Mayor Elaine Wyatt told elected community representatives at last weekend's meeting of the Association of Yukon Communities the new requirements could bankrupt her village in a split second.

The government's insistence the communities must become responsible for any liabilities related to toxic waste leaking out of their local dumps is truly unnerving, Wyatt suggested.

All it would take, she said, is one claim that leaching from the Carmacks dump was tainting the ground water supply and the community of 500 would be plunged into financial turmoil, regardless of the outcome.

"We do not want to accept even one bit of liability, because we cannot afford that liability,” Wyatt said.

She wasn't alone on the issue as the mayors and councillors met over three days in Haines Junction to discuss a variety of their issues.

Regarding landfills, the municipal leaders agreed before matters got too far off the rails, they would immediately request a meeting with the deputy minister of the Department of Community Services, and the deputy of Environment Yukon.

Environment Yukon, after all, was the department which brought in the new liability provisions and requirements for the communities to install ground water monitoring wells around their landfills, it was pointed out.

Community Service Minister Archie Lang told delegates the communities will not be left standing alone in this matter. There is a role for the government to play in accepting future liabilities, he said.

Many dumps, he said, have been around for years.

Lang compared the issue to the old mine sites like Faro which remain Ottawa's financial responsibility to clean up, even though the territorial government is responsible for managing mining in the Yukon today.

Watson Lake has already retained an environmental lawyer to push back against the new landfill liability provisions for the incorporated communities.

"Our legal advisor informs us that the possible liabilities are enough to bankrupt local government and that costs to residents and the Yukon government could be in the tens of millions,” reads the March 23 letter sent to Premier Dennis Fentie by Watson Lake Mayor Richard Durocher.

The letter also indicates the lawyer for Watson Lake is suggesting that all liability related to community landfills rests with the Yukon government, based on previous court decisions.

The whole matter, Durocher writes, obviously arose out of one hand of government not knowing what the other was doing.

The letter states: "The town will not sign the permit in its current form. We are eager to undertake to try and resolve the impasse, but it is our opinion that the bureaucratic bumblings are of such a nature that the entire process really demands to be reviewed by a committee comprised of local government,

environmental NGOs, and senior Yukon personnel, naturally, those who caused this situation to arise.”

The mayor maintains in his letter to the premier and MLA for Watson Lake the changes to landfill policies were made by Environment Yukon without any community consultation.

In fact, Durocher insists, they were made with no involvement by Community Services, the government department responsible for helping the communities oversee and manage their landfills.

He also points out while Environment Yukon is pushing the new regulations onto the incorporated communities, there's no similar requirement for Community Services to sign off on operational permits for landfills outside unincorporated communities, such as Marsh Lake.

Durocher notes the town's resistance to signing the permit was met with threats of enforcement action under the Environment Act. Watson Lake, however, was and still is prepared to take the matter to court, the mayor writes.

In addition to the issue regarding liabilities, the municipal leaders also expressed concerned with the cost of implementing the new requirements, such as paying for the installation of the ground monitoring wells.

There's also discussion about the government's desire to regionalize landfills in the smaller incorporated communities, much like the Whitehorse landfill is accepting garbage from outside the city.

The concept of regionalizing landfills is OK, as long as it comes with the necessary resources to ensure responsibilities are not being offloaded from the Yukon government to municipalities, it was suggested by the elected representatives.

Rob Fendrick, Whitehorse's director of administrative services, said because of the management and operational structure of the local landfill, the issue of liability is not a concern for the capital.

As for regionalization, he said, the city could handle garbage from the entire Yukon, providing adequate resources and a proper transportation network were in place.