Yellowknife (Feb 03/06) - A Yellowknife resident says the city's "toxic" snowhill in the Kam Lake industrial park is ruining his sleep and polluting the environment.

Kam Lake MLA Dave Ramsay says the city should consider moving its snow dumping location at Enterprise Drive to somewhere else where it won't disturb neighbours. - Mike W. Bryant/NNSL photo

Dickie Bernatchez said he's complained to City Hall about the snowhill at the end of Enterprise Drive before, but his protests have fallen on deaf ears. The snow is trucked there throughout the winter after it is shovelled off city streets.

He said for several years, noisy graders have packed snow there well into the early morning hours, and in the spring the snow melts, leaving behind an oily, garbage-filled pond that he fears has been draining away into Great Slave Lake.

"It's really bad stuff," said Bernatchez.

"It's all oil and toxic diesel spills. It's downtown Yellowknife snow."

Bernatchez is what the city calls a "caretaker resident." He is part of a not-all-that-small group of people allowed under the city's zoning bylaw to live in the Kam Lake industrial park because his business is located there as well. Several houses and trailers are nestled among warehouses and workshops along Enterprise Drive.

The city largely ignores the snow dump area when they're not using it, said Bernatchez.

He claims the remnant pond in spring is a safety hazard because the build-up of sand dredged up from city streets over the years has turned into quicksand.

"Someone's going to drown there or drive through it," said Bernatchez. "(The city) doesn't even block it off."

A better location to dump snow would be in the tailings ponds left behind by Con and Giant Mines, said Bernatchez.

Kam Lake MLA Dave Ramsay said he has talked to the city and the territorial government's Department of Municipal and Community Affairs, which holds the lease to the ground on which the snowhill sits, about it. He said it's time for the city to find a permanent snow-dumping site.

The city briefly dumped snow at the end of School Draw Avenue near Rat Lake in the mid-1990s, but nearby residents demanded that it be moved somewhere else.

"I know Kam Lake is an industrial park, but people do live there," he said.

"They pay taxes and I don't think anybody should have to live next door to a snow dump."

He also thinks the city should be thinking about using tailings ponds to dump snow.

Greg Kehoe, director of Public Works, said the city is conducting a snow dump location study to see if there are any more suitable locations.

The city uses two snow dump sites right now - the one on Enterprise Drive and another one at the landfill.

"You don't want to be close to a residential area, and you want to be fairly close to where you're getting the streets so there's good value and you're not spending a lot of money on trucking costs," said Kehoe.

He didn't comment on Bernatchez and Ramsay's suggestions to use tailings ponds.

While the city doesn't do any specific environmental monitoring of its Enterprise Drive snow dump, Kehoe said they try to clean it up as best as they can. "If there is loose garbage and stuff like that, we'll try to pick up some of the stuff," said Kehoe.

"But the complaints we've had about it have been pretty isolated to the people who live around it."