The summer may be over, but the Queen is still making waves in Dawson City, and the locals in charge of assessing her impact on the community say they've done all they can.

The Yukon Environmental and Socio-economic Assessment Board (YESAB)'s Dawson office has been working since March to assess the damage done and the benefit brought by the MV Yukon Queen II.

The cruise vessel, run by Holland America, sails between Dawson and Eagle, Alaska daily during the summer months, and has done so since 1988.

But the district office has been unable to determine two things: how many juvenile salmon are sucked up and killed by the catamaran's jets, and how much river bank erosion is caused by the vessel's wake.

Both are issues that have raised considerable ire in the community and amongst affected first nations, who say the boat is harming the already-fragile salmon stock and literally washing away their settlement land.

There is not enough information available to determine the extent of the damage, Felix Horne, YESAB's Dawson assessment officer, told a press conference Wednesday.

"Studies haven't been done," he said. "It's not up to us to design a study to determine the effects."

So, the file and all its attendant controversy is being passed up, to the YESAB executive committee.

"The executive committee process will allow for more study," committee member Stephen Mills said, adding the executive does have the power to commission studies.

He, along with Ken McKinnon and Simon Mason Wood, are now in charge of answering the questions Horne could not.

Although Mills insisted the committee was "not going to start from scratch," the process he outlined could take up to two years.

"We sent a letter today inviting the proponent to speak with the executive committee," he said.

The proponent, Holland America, has not always been quick to respond to similar invitations from the Dawson office and Mills conceded that the time it will take to do the assessment will depend largely on the tour operator's co-operation.

Linda Huston, Holland America's regional manager, said Wednesday the company is looking through all the YESAB documents and preparing a new project proposal, to be submitted to Mills and his colleagues. She could not say how long that process would take.

Earlier this year, Huston told a CBC radio reporter that should the Yukon Queen II be dry-docked, Holland America would have to reconsider all its Yukon operations.

People don't want to spend all their time on tour buses, she said, and the cruise is a welcome light at the end of the Whitehorse-to-Dawson bus trip.

She also said at that time that putting a different vessel on the route was not an option.

Half a year later, her tune has changed.

"Currently, we maintain that the vessel we bought (in 1999) was the best available at the time," she said, but added that Holland America is always looking at new technologies and may consider buying a new boat for the Dawson/Eagle cruise "if there is available capital.

"We're not ready to end our Yukon operations," she said.

But all this processing and assessing could be an exercise in futility.

The final decision about the Queen's future on the river rests not with YESAB, but with the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) and the Tr'ondek Hwech'in First Nation, based in Dawson.

"It's our responsibility to make recommendations," Mills said. "It's up to the decision-makers to consider those recommendations."

But those suggestions likely will not be ready by next May, when Holland America hopes to put the Yukon Queen in the water. If that is the case, the DFO and Tr'ondek Hwech'in would be on their own.

"We don't provide preliminary reports," Mills said.

Tr'ondek Hwech'in Chief Darren Taylor said Wednesday he does not want to comment on the matter until he and his council have read the 90-page report sent to them by the Dawson YESAB office.

"We are looking at the documents now and will make a statement in the next few days," he said. The first nation made three lengthy submissions to the YESAB regarding the Queen's impact, which cover issues from treaty rights to everyday enjoyment of the Yukon River.

Repeated calls to Frank Quinn, a senior DFO official in Whitehorse, were not returned.

Huston pointed out another hitch in the works when she said the Yukon Queen may have to run next summer in order for the necessary studies on its impact to be done.

YESAB communications manager Rob Yeomans agreed that is a possibility.

This is the second time in YESAB history that a proposal has been passed from a district office to the executive.

The first, involving a residential development project, was dropped by proponent John Clunies-Ross shortly after he was contacted by the executive.