The owners of the Swift River Lodge are crying out for political help to address what they feel is a completely unnecessary closure of their restaurant and motel business.

Sharon Johnson said the order issued last month by the territorial health department is costing them thousands upon thousands of dollars in lost revenue, and could potentially drive her and her brother, Jerry, into bankruptcy.

Both Premier Dennis Fentie and Health Minister Peter Jenkins have been asked for their assistance, she said in an interview this morning.

'But they both said they could not get involved because it would be political interference,' Johnson said from the Alaska highway lodge located 100 kilometres south of Teslin. 'But it's going from bad to worse.'

Johnson said the health department is afraid that a septic tank located some 12 metres away from an encased well water supply could start leaking and contaminate the water used by the business.

The department, however, has not once received any hint of contamination in the numerous water samples taken, she pointed out.

And with the order in place, Johnson is afraid the $300,000 in private financing they had lined up for this spring to install a new septic field and build new restaurant facilities will disappear.

She said the closure is also creating a unsafe situation with highway travellers who arrive exhausted and in need of lodging for the night, but who can no longer get a room or home-cooked meal, and are forced to continue driving.

One elderly customer who routinely travels that stretch of highway relies on the Swift River Lodge for a bathroom break. Not anymore.

The business, she said, is being strangled by the order. Customers are being denied access to the only 24-hour, winter-time services between Teslin and Watson Lake, and are even being put at risk by being forced to drive longer than they expected.

Three full-time cooks have been laid off.

And the order, Johnson said, is based only on the fear that an approved septic tank might leak sewage, and that the sewage material would travel the 11 metres and find its way into the water horizon where the encased well is pulling its water from.

'It is unfair, it is so outrageous,' Johnson said. 'It is just ridiculous.'

She said if politicians can't get involved in situations like this because they're afraid they'll be criticized for political interference, then what can they get involved with?

Fentie, whose Watson Lake riding takes in Swift River, said this morning he has done what he can to assist the Johnsons with acquiring land next-door to provide for a new septic field.

But he insists it is not his place nor the place of any MLA to start messing with decisions by the Yukon's medical health officer.

The officer, said Fentie, has found there is potential risk.

He said it mustn't be forgotten that in Walkerton, Ont., there was no problem either until people started dying in May 2000 from contaminated water.

'After the fact, when people start getting sick, that is too late.'

Johnson, on the other hand, said while there is not a shred of evidence of problems with the water supply, the business was complying with a boil water order issued last fall. It was also providing regular water samples to the health department.

She acknowledged they did miss a couple of weeks' worth of what were to be weekly sampling, but there were plenty of samples provided, she said.

Officials from the health department travelled to Swift River in early February to read them the 'riot act' about the need to comply with the request for weekly samples, Johnson said.

A few days later, she said, the officials from the department showed up to shut down the restaurant, public use of washrooms and therefore the motel facilities.

She said there is a concern among health officials that there is a risk for washroom users even though there are signs above the sinks warning not to drink the water from the taps.

She said the lodge was forced to change its method of handling sewage disposal last summer when its leach pit became saturated. They began using the septic as a holding tank for all waste water and solids, at a cost of sometimes $3,000 a month to keep it pumped out.

There is a plan to replace the septic field and restaurant this spring, on land that Fentie is helping to secure from the highway maintenance yard next-door, Johnson noted.

But with the closure hanging over their heads, she's not certain the lender will remain interested in financing the septic field and restaurant.

Installation of the septic tank was approved in 1979, she said, though rules have changed and septic tanks are no longer permitted within 33 metres of a well.

The health department has said the well can be used if it's fitted with a filtration system, she said.

Johnson said a Whitehorse company that provides water supply services quoted $2,000 for a UV system to guard against contamination concerns.

The health department, however, says it will only accept the installation of a chlorination system, which the company has estimated at $8,000 plus the cost of the new building required to house the equipment and tanks, she said.

'It is killing us,' Johnson said of the situation. 'It is absolutely killing us.'

Now, with the closure going into its sixth week, she said, it was decided last week to start a petition.

In five days, she said, she has collected five pages of signatures by highway travellers from all over Canada and the United States.

Bryce Larke, the territory's medical health officer, could not be reached for comment this morning.