Terry Halifax
Northern News Services

Fort Smith (Jan 31/00) - A fire that has smoldered at the Fort Smith dump since last November may be out, but costs associated with the problem continue to escalate.

The fire was extinguished recently following a week of excavating through the layers of compacted trash looking for embers.

The town was forced to take action after complaints from residents of Bell Rock, a suburb of Fort Smith. The local Resources Wildlife and Economic Development office ordered the town to extinguish the blaze or face charges.

Although town officials say putting out the smoldering fire cost much less than the original estimate of $50,000, there will still be an additional cost of about $1,000 per week to bring the dump up to standards.

"It's going to be way less than what we anticipated, but with the order we received, there is also some work to do at the dump, so we don't know just how much it will cost yet," said Fort Smith Mayor Peter Martselos.

The mayor said council may have no choice but to raise taxes to cover the additional upgrades they're forced to make at the dump.

"We have a meeting next week to discuss our options," Martselos said. "We have to have some cost estimates to determine if we'll have to raise taxes or whatever."

The mayor says they are seeking alternatives to raising taxes, such as an increase in the local water rates, but he said they don't want to be forced into cutting services. Martselos said the town has made efforts over the years to clean up the nuisance grounds with the limited funds available.

"I can't take money from services ... are we supposed to leave the snow in the streets to put money in the dump?" he asked.

The forced upgrades made at the dump are due to government legislation and Martselos said that since government made the laws, it should help the town.

"I think the territorial government has some responsibility to help us out," he said. "I don't want to be singled out, because there are other places with bigger problems than us."

Deputy minister for Municipal and Community Affairs, Vern Christensen, said his office recognizes the need for upgrades at community landfill sites.

"The department provides block funding to major municipalities like Fort Smith, where we provide funding for both their capital infrastructure and their operational requirements," Christensen said. "In the calculation of the block funding there was consideration of improvement projects for dump infrastructure."

MACA split the cost of extinguishing the fire, he said.

"We did provide a small extraordinary contribution to help them deal with the fire itself."

Bordered by Alberta and Wood Buffalo National Park on two sides and the Slave River to the East, Fort Smith has few choices on where to put the dump. Christensen said when space becomes a problem, communities must start to look for other methods to manage waste.

"A landfill is not the only option a municipality should be looking at for disposing of solid waste," he advised. "The city of Yellowknife have done a fairly big project to upgrade their landfill site, but typically they are landfills or modified landfills."

RWED wildlife officer Berny Bergman, received the complaints and served the town with the order to extinguish the fire.

He also served the town with an order requiring it to do work that will prevent problems in the future.

"The prevention order is something that is on-going to prevent future fires and the release of contaminants," said Bergman.

The prevention order will result in most of the additional costs the town faces, through compacting and covering garbage on a weekly basis, separation of waste and supervision.

Duane Fleming, environmental health consultant with the Department of Health and Social Services, said the health implications of burning garbage could be quite serious, depending on what is burned.

"People with chronic respiratory problems or other health problems, such as asthma or heart problems, can be affected immediately from the smoke," Fleming said. "The long-term effects would be difficult to really say, because we don't know what materials are being burned."

"Exposure would depend on wind direction, so no one would be in the smoke 24 hours a day. But depending on the wind direction it could be in their area for some time," he added.

Bergman said the town should be commended for its quick action in complying with the order.