Yellowknife (Aug 20/03) - Residents near the public dock in Old Town are calling on government and corporate officials to clean up pools of stagnant water left behind by Freshwater Fish Corporation.

Houseboater Penelope Shaw said she could smell something foul on the government dock. - Merle Robillard/NNSL photo

"It smells like you're in a pig farm," said well-known local singer Tracy Riley, who rents office space beside the dock.

"Something needs to be done about it. Sometimes it's almost unbearable."

The culprit is a Freshwater Fish cargo trailer that has been leaking fishy-smelling water on the dock for the last several weeks.

The trailer, equipped with a refrigeration system, is filled with fish from Great Slave Lake destined for the South.

Residents say the truck is often left on the dock overnight and leaves behind smelly pools of water. "One day I came out and my truck was covered in bugs," said Riley.

"They were attracted to the smell of the water. It was disgusting."

The public dock is controlled the by Coast Guard, which contracted the Federal Department of Public Works to keep the area clean.

An official at the department said Freshwater Fish, a federally run government agency, does have permission to park the truck overnight, but is responsible for cleaning up any spillage.

Environmental Health Officer Tanja Rarog says her office was notified of the smell two weeks ago and discussed the issue with officials at Freshwater Fish.

"We did an inspection of the area and asked the company to take care of the problem," said Rarog.

"We haven't had another complaint."

Rarog said the pools don't pose a serious health threat.

"They're more of an nuisance," she said.

An official at Freshwater Fish said the company dispatched a zone manager late last week to make sure the dock was being properly cleaned.

But when Yellowknifer visited the area last Friday a pungent odour of rotting fish filled the air.

"The smell here is still pretty bad," said Matthew Grogono on Friday evening.

"It's been like this for a while."

According to houseboater Penelope Shaw, the smell wasn't an issue until part of the public dock adjacent to the Department of Fisheries and Oceans was fenced off in July, forcing Freshwater Fish to park the trailer closer to a residential area.

"It was in an ideal location before, far away from the houses. So even if it did smell, nobody noticed it," said Shaw.

"Now it's right there, so of course it's going to smell."

Shaw said that if Fisheries and Oceans were to re-open the roughly 20-metre section of dock that was closed last month, the trailer could be moved away from residential areas.

"It worked before," she said. "I can't understand why part of the dock was fenced off in the first place."

Yellowknifer tried to contact officials at Fisheries and Oceans, but they did not answer a request for an interview.