City council will consider all the arguments when it makes a decision on the McLean Lake batch plant proposal.

Mayor Bev Buckway said this morning council will be reviewing a public hearing report on Territorial Contracting Ltd.'s proposal to put a concrete batch plant and quarry operation behind the Sleeping Giant Hill in the McLean Lake area.

Buckway also said there is a meeting scheduled later this week between the municipal and Kwanlin Dun First Nation (KDFN) governments during which McLean Lake will be part of the agenda.

'The public hearing report will be a key piece for us to discuss tonight,' Buckway said.

'It will show the reasoning and the stance of where some of these issues come from.'

At last Monday evening's packed public hearing, council heard from residents from a variety of areas in the city.

They listed concerns ranging from air and water quality to property values as they lobbied council to vote against Territorial Contracting owner Ron Newsome's rezoning proposal.

At the meeting with the KDFN later this week, Buckway expects a number of issues to be discussed, including McLean Lake.

'It's definitely going to come up,' she said.

The KDFN's opposition to the proposal has been noted but it doesn't necessarily mean council would vote against the batch plant.

At last week's public hearing report, KDFN spokeswoman Gillian McKee read a letter from chief Mike Smith who said his first nation wants to work with council to find another place for Territorial Contracting's proposal.

According to Smith's Jan. 29 letter to council, the KDFN has environmental and socio-economic concerns with Newsome's proposal.

'Our concerns have been well-documented in previous correspondence with the city, and include issues related to decreased property values, cumulative effects within the McLean Lake watershed, inadequate to a decrease in property values, cumulative effects within the McLean Lake watershed, inadequate consideration of project alternatives, and inadequate reclamation plans for a quarry area,' Smith's letter reads.

'Since May 2005, Kwanlin Dun First Nation has expressed our concern to the city about having this quarry and batch plant located within close proximity to two major, valuable areas of KDFN settlement land.

'We have already seen approval of one heavy industrial use near a KDFN parcel with the land treatment facility at the north end of Whitehorse.'

Smith said he was disappointed with the scope of the review process conducted by Gartner Lee environmental consultants. However, he agreed with the review's findings that McLean Lake was a land use planning issue.

Gartner Lee was hired by the city at the end of last year to look into the environmental review process undertaken by Territorial Contracting.

According to Gartner Lee's report: 'The public consultation process, conducted through LARC, meets the requirements as stated under section 12(1)c of the Environmental Assessment Act (EAA), and the public review comment of the draft screening report conducted between July 2004 and January 2005 satisfies the requirements for public review and comment as stated under section 14(3) of the EAA.'

The EAA has since been replaced by the Yukon Environmental and Socio-economic Assessment Act.

Opponents of the proposal, including Bob Kuiper and Skeeter Miller-Wright, have stated they don't feel Gartner Lee's mandate went far enough.

Miller-Wright and Kuiper said while Gartner Lee's report may state the environmental review was complete, the environmental consultants were never hired to see if the original report was accurate.

Smith said the KDFN was never consulted about Newsome's application process. He feels the project would have a negative impact on two parcels of first nation land close to the area.

'No one has assessed the economic impacts of industrial activity in the midst of the natural amenities that make our parcels valuable,' Smith's letter states.

The chief said he feels the Stevens area, near the Alaska Highway-Mayo Road intersection, or another area up the Copper Haul Road could be a viable alternative to Newsome's proposal.