The Icy Waters Arctic char farm is not trying to hoodwink anybody with its request for a change to its water licence, says company president John Rose.

As a matter of fact, Rose suggested this morning, the application for an amendment is to clarify and recognize conditions that already exist at the Fish Lake Road facility.

A public hearing has been scheduled for April 21.

The request for more water reflects the volumes that flow naturally through the facility, a volume that fluctuates with the seasons and the years, Rose said in an interview.

He said the request for a seemingly higher allowance for the release of dissolved phospherous is really an attempt to clarify the difference between the existing licence provision for the release of phosphate.

Phosphate, and the more commonly measured phosphorous, are two different substances altogether, Rose said.

Icy Waters is looking to have the licence reflect the more common practice of measuring phosphorous, he added.

'We want to be good corporate citizens,' he said. 'We want to make sure the fisherman are happy, we want to make sure the regulators are happy. We just want to be good corporate citizens.'

He said the company recognizes there are concerns among local anglers and others who feel the fish farm is having a detrimental impact downstream.

Icy Waters is looking forward to the public hearing to demonstrate it believes it's not having an adverse impact, and if it is shown it is, as a means of correcting the situation, he said.

Rose insisted this is not an application to pave the way for an increase in production.

Phospherous material is said to enhance the production of nutrients and subsequently increases algae which requires oxygen and can reduce the availablity of oxygen for fish and other organisms.

The Fish Lake Road fish farm opened in the late 1980s. It produces Arctic char that is sold locally around the world.

The Yukon government and the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans will be participating in the hearings, as well as several other parties and individuals who've asked to be heard.

The Yukon government, while not opposed to the increase in the water use, as it already occurs with natural flows, is opposed to any increase in the release of phosphorous.

On record at the Yukon Territory Water Board are several pieces of correspondence from local anglers and others who maintain the Icy Waters facility has had a detrimental impact on both McIntyre Creek and the popular pumphouse lake fishing hole.

There is also correspondence suggested negative impacts on the Porter Creek system.

Randy and Cindy Deuysscher of the Caddis and Grayling Fly Shop maintain the quality of the pumphouse lake has gone down hill since the facility opened.

'Both the fish and the vegetation have been negatively impacted over the years and any increase to the allowable discharge standard and water quantity will only serve to decimate the area until it is incapable of sustaining any vegetation or fish,' the couple wrote in a letter to the water board a year ago.

Another letter suggests the growth of algae on the lake was so bad one year that Icy Waters sent staff down to the road to the lake with rakes to clear out the algae.

Rose said the company has indeed had staff at the lake with rakes to clean up the algae, not because it was the cause, but because it was the corporate citizen type thing to do.

The McIntyre Creek system generates its own phosphorous, and it was during the seasonably warmer years of 1997, 1998 and last year that the bloom of algae was higher than normal, he said.

But he also said that last month's study of fish and oxygen levels in the pumphouse lake by the Department of the Environment showed healthy fish and plenty of oxygen.

The public hearing, said Rose, will help to sort out all the arguments and hopefully lead to a licence amendment that everybody accepts and understands.

Also on record are several form letters submitted in defence of the Icy Waters business which describe the company as one that strives to be responsible. The letters also suggest that a public hearing is not required to address the issue of the requested amendments.

Members of the water board ruled last Nov. 20 that there were grounds for a public hearing. The matter is scheduled for one day.