Dawson City's troubled wastewater treatment plant to be replaced by sewage lagoon

Dawson City's $30-million wastewater treatment plant made a big splash for all the wrong reasons when it opened in 2013. Now, the end is in sight.

The town and the Yukon government are in the early stages of creating a plan to replace the beleaguered plant with a new sewage lagoon.

Last year, the government said it would shut down the existing plant by 2026. In mid-January, Dawson town council voted unanimously to go ahead with site selection and design work for the sewage lagoon.There's no timeline yet for its construction.

"We're really happy that we're doing this work with the Yukon government, really happy that we're shoulder to shoulder with them on solving this problem," said Dawson mayor Wayne Potoroka.

"I really wish when that facility was built the one we have now that it did what we were told it would do, which is treat our sewage in an affordable fashion."

High cost, low quality

It costs nearly $1 million per year to run the existing plant, a cost that is mostly covered by the territorial government. A memo from September2019 from the Yukon government to Dawson City's public works department says operating costs are more than three times higher than comparable plants in Alaska.

The wastewater treatment plant uses a vertical treatment system to treat sewage in an aerated shaft that extends 90 metres below ground. The plant initially failed to meet water treatment standards, although a filtration system installed in 2018 has improved the quality of water coming out of the plant.

Lagoons are manufactured ponds that hold sewage and treat it through biological processes and exposure to UV light, according to thememo. No location has been selected yet, but the memo says it "would be located outside of the city's core and would require a large parcel of land."

Where would a sewage lagoon go?

In 2008, Dawson residents voted against the proposed site of a sewage lagoon. Construction of the existing wastewater facility began the following year.

"I think engineering-wise [lagoons] arenot all that complicated,"Potoroka said."Finding a place to put it will be, and that's going to be a big part of the work going forward here."

Also unresolved is the territorial government's lawsuit against Corix Utilities, the contractor who designed and built the plant, and Chubb Canada, Corix's insurer. The government is seeking $27.5 from Corix and $12.5 million from Chubb, which holds a performance bond on the contract.

A spokesperson with Yukon's Department of Community Servicesdeclined to comment.