The Yukon government does not plan to start constructing a new sewage treatment plant for Dawson City this spring.

'Even if we wanted to break ground this spring, we couldn't,' the government's community development director, Eric Magnuson, said in an interview Monday.

Last week, the Yukon River Inter-Tribal Watershed Council (YRITWC), a group of 54 first nation governments in the Yukon and Alaska, called on the territory to begin construction of a new sewage treatment plant very soon.

'We want ground broken this spring,' Rob Rosenfeld, the council's regional director told the Star last Friday.

Magnuson said that will not happen, something Premier Dennis Fentie wouldn't answer in his letter to the council.

He said the government is not ready as far as a design of a new secondary-treatment plant to get started.

However, it doesn't want to get started on that treatment plant which a territorial judge has ordered be built by the town, now under the government's control since the mayor and council were fired three weeks ago.

Magnuson said the government thinks it can treat Dawson City's sewage effectively without spending the $15 million to $20 million necessary to construct the secondary system the court has ordered and the YRITWC wants to see built.

Magnuson said the government has a few plans in the works which would make the full plant unnecessary.

One problem is that ammonia levels have been too high in the water pumped into the Yukon River from the town's sewage.

The full-fledged plant the town has been ordered to build would reduce the ammonia through micro-organisms released into the sewage.

The problem, said Magnuson, is the fact the water needs to be 6 C or higher for the micro-organisms to do their job.

Since water from below ground is added to the sewage before it is pumped into the river, the temperature is below 6 C in the winter, meaning the water must be heated. That adds to the government's expenses.

Instead of building the plant, Magnuson hopes the ammonia and other dangerous chemicals in the water can be dealt with differently.

One way the government wants to deal with the sewage is by disinfecting it using ultraviolet. Magnuson said UV rays are a part of the big system the government is trying to avoid and have been used successfully elsewhere.

According to a federal government website about municipal sewage: 'Results showed that ultraviolet disinfection is indeed cost-effective and acceptable at Ontario STPs (sewage treatment plants), and that UV systems are able to effectively disinfect treated sewage from both secondary and tertiary treatment plants.

'An additional advantage for UV technology is that plant operators consider it less hazardous to use than chemical disinfection,' the website adds.

Magnuson said the government also wants to put an 'ultrafine' screen in place to take out small particles in the sewage.

Currently, the only screen catches all particles 0.75 millimetres and larger. This new screen would catch anything that is 0.03 millimetres and larger.

As well, Magnuson said laundry detergent is one of the biggest contributors to the high ammonia levels. The government wants to start a project with hotels and other businesses in Dawson City to use much more environmentally-friendly laundry soap.

Magnuson said the government soon hopes to make a submission to the Yukon Territory Water Board to get its support for the non-toxic laundry soap project, the UV disinfection and ultrafine screen.

'These changes could happen very soon,' said Magnuson.

'We're not talking multimillion-dollar projects.'

He said it could take $1 million to $2 million for both the ultrafine screen and ultraviolet disinfection.

Magnuson pointed out the ammonia levels are only really a problem in the summer months, when tourists hit the Klondike.

He also hopes the town's cause will be aided by the federal government's reconsideration of how it tests for ammonia in sewage water.

He said there is a concern the test itself causes the toxicity in the water to go up, creating incorrect results.

If Ottawa changes the testing, Magnuson believes the toxicity levels will drop and make the adjustments to deal with the ammonia levels unnecessary.

So far, the Yukon government has spent $4 million on the sewage plant since 1993 for design, water licence applications, testing and legal fees.