In Wednesday’s Yukon News I’m quoted as saying that the designated site for our new waste water treatment plant is nobody’s best choice. I may have been misquoted, I distinctly remember saying that its nobody’s first choice, it is however the best location for the treatment plant given the constraints we have to work with.
The proponent of the petition for a referendum on the location of this facility says in the same article; “Who would build a toilet on top of his water tank?”, referring to the site as being in proximity to the Klondike River. This is the kind of fallacious information that needs to be dispelled so that people can make a rational choice based on fact, not emotional scare tactics. Engineering studies have been done to show that even under catastrophic conditions, a breach in the system isn’t likely to contaminate the wells on Front Street that supply our drinking water. By catastrophic I mean a scenario where a freshwater well won’t be needed because the town will have been wiped off the map. You can read this study by following the link at the bottom of this post.
Our entire water and sewer infrastructure is buried in the ground, in some cases right on top of the aquifer, and has been for years. Has there been a breach in the pipes? Has our water ever been poisoned? There are a few Dawson citizens still using outhouses right on top of the aquifer that feeds our wells, not to mention dog feces that some pet owners elect to leave sitting on top of our aquifer, in some cases right next to the wells by the dike.
The underground water that feeds our wells is filtered through thousands of cubic feet of sand and gravels, cleaning the water of contaminates. It then gets sent to the pump-house where it is chlorinated before distribution to water taps in our community. The aerated lagoon will be over a kilometer away from the three community wells on front street located across the street from the Commissioner’s Residence which in turn are each 75 feet deep, the water contained in them fluctuates up and down according to the height of the water table.
The proponent of the petition claims that “They’ve (Dawsonites) just never been asked for input”. Let us remember that we have had ample opportunity to offer input over the last 25 years, ever since waste-water treatment became an issue and a responsibility for all of us. Today we have a location, we have a plan and we have the money in place and a court order as added incentive to get the job done. Dawson has never been as close to getting a secondary treatment plant as we are now. I hope we can put aside baseless fears and emotion and endorse this scientifically sound project.
We can inform ourselves by visiting this link; Dawson City Sewage Treatment Project
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