Yukon's contaminated sites now mapped online

The Yukon government has published a new map that marks contaminated sites throughout the territory.

It includes everything from relatively small diesel and aviation fuel spills to immense and ongoingcleanup projects like the Faro mine.

A disclaimer states the map isn't perfect. In orderto see the map, viewers must click to acknowledge that "the government of Yukon does not warrant or represent in any way that the information is accurate, complete, or can be relied upon for any purpose."

Nevertheless, it representsyears of work.

Vanessa Scharf, an environmental protection analystwith Yukon's Environmental Programs branch says the map isthe most complete database the governmentcould assemble.

"We're looking at sites from decades and decades, when all we had were paper records," she said. "There was definitely a lot of searching."

The map lists about 530sites in all. Of these sites,207 are considered "contaminated,"while171 are "remediated." Another 151 are considered "unknown."

Scharfsays one group that had been asking for such a map are realtors and people involved in land purchases.The map allows zooming to a high level of detail, such as seeing individual lots within the City of Whitehorse.

Little information about federally-managed sites

The map also includeswhat care called Devolution Transfer Agreement Sites which remained afederal responsibility after the territory negotiated devolution in2003.

Scharf said those listings are lacking in information compared to territorial records.

"We don't have much information on those other than the location, but people arewelcome to contact the federal government," shesaid.

The federal government publishes its own map of contaminated sites and thetwomaps can't overlap. The federal map includes fewer sites and only lists projects by number, without any information thereavailable even on large projects like the Faro cleanup.

Environmentalist welcomes map

Lewis Rifkind, mining analyst for the Yukon Conservation Society, welcomes the new resource. He says it's a valuable educational tool.

We market the Yukon asan unspoiled wilderness. But when you look at maps like this, you know we've done a lot of damageto the land.- Lewis Rifkind, mining critic, Yukon Conservation Society

"There are dots everywhere in the Yukon," he said, referring to the contaminated sites markedon the map.

"We market the Yukon as an unspoiled wilderness, but when you look at maps like this, you know we've done a lot of damage to theland but we've cleaned up a lot of it, too and that's important."

He has a criticism though, saying the scale of different projects isn't illustrated well. Each dot is the same size, whether it's a small fuel spillor a major industrial cleanup.

"Some of the big mines like Faro, there is just a little dot and there's no information because it's not a Yukon government responsibility, it's a federal government responsibility," he said.

"But it could be argued the Faro mine site is a huge source of contaminants whereas someone's oil tank spill is very small in comparison. So it's a matter of scale," Rifkindsaid.

Environment Yukon encourages readers to contact the government with any information about errors or omissions in the Yukon map.