The Village of Mayo is continuing to struggle with rising ground water causing flooding issues on the community's outskirts.

Emergency measures co-ordinator Don Hutton said this morning work will continue today to try to ease the inflow and capture some of the water seeping through the berm along the Mayo River.

Heavy equipment worked Thursday at the site of the flooded yard of Yukon Energy's diesel generating plant to create an ice and gravel berm around the buildings.

A little water has flowed from the yard onto the Silver Trail Highway leading into Mayo but nothing to affect traffic flow, he said.

Hutton said there were plans to dig a sump today on the village-side of the dike to help collect seepage and pump it back into the river.

Further backhoe work was also scheduled to keep river channels clear of ice to enhance flow, he said.

The emergency measures co-ordinator said it's obvious there is an ice jam somewhere downriver which is causing the water to back up.

But exactly where it is has not been determined, despite inspections on the ground and from the air, he said.

As the river backs up, Hutton explained, it begins seeping through an old low-lying channel beneath the berm built along the Mayo River.

He said he knows of one homeowner living near the generating plant who has seen the water in his basement sump rise to the floor level.

Village staff, officials with Yukon Energy and the emergency measures team were scheduled to have a conference call this morning to discuss continuing management of the situation.

In a brief interview late Thursday afternoon, Mayo Mayor Scott Bolton said "our concern is growing.”

Hutton said there is no evidence whatsoever that Yukon Energy and its operation of the Mayo dam hydro facility is to blame for the ice jam in the river.

Nor is there any evidence Yukon Energy's construction of the Mayo B hydro expansion over the past year has caused the high water, he said.

Janet Patterson, the spokeswoman for the publicly owned electrical utility, said this morning staff have looked at its operations at the Mayo dam and can so far find nothing which would have contributed to the ice jamming.

There are plans later this winter to study the ice jamming in the Mayo River to determine if there is anything Yukon Energy can do with its operation to help prevent a similar situation, she explained.

For now, said Patterson, the issue at hand is dealing with the rising water in Mayo.

She said with the construction of the berm around the buildings at the generating plant, the focus today will be to pump water away from the plant to another area in the yard.