Yellowknife (Oct 25/06) - Abandoned vehicles, washers, dryers and piles of other junk are cluttering the woods alongside Vee Lake Road, and it's getting worse, says a couple who live on nearby Walsh Lake.

"We drive it every day so we see it," said Lorna Palmer. "It's not really good for the environment."

Besides burnt-out cars and abandoned dryers, Palmer said people have off-loaded old fuel tanks, refrigerators and stoves onto various side roads along the route all summer.

When Yellowknifer took a drive down Vee Lake Road, Monday, one area - a known party get-away spot for teens during the summer - contained four smashed-up vehicles plus several truck canopies and campers.

One such canopy had been set on fire and reduced to a charred wreck. A matching washer and dryer set appeared to have been dropped off only days before. In several spots, the ground was littered with household trash and spent shotgun shells.

Palmer suggested that junk is accumulating there because it's a quiet, secluded road where people can throw away large appliances and vehicles without getting caught or having to pay tipping fees at the dump.

City council hiked tipping fees at the landfill last year, amid warnings from some residents that people would merely stop taking their old appliances to the dump and drop them off along rural roads instead.

Fees for dumping old vehicles shot up to $100 from $25, and refrigerators went from no fee up to $35.

Earlier this year, Yellowknife resident Peter Pagonis complained after finding an illegal dumping area on a dirt road a couple of hundred meters from the dump.

Giant mine clean-up crews working for the federal government later removed the junk and blocked access to the road but there are dozens of other accessible side roads along the Ingraham Trail and the Vee Lake Road.

"Maybe they should get rid of the fees so people stop polluting," said Palmer.

Greg Kehoe, director of Public Works, said people have been illegally dumping trash long before the new tipping fees came into effect.

"There hasn't been that many instances where this has been noticed," said Kehoe.

"It's not to say it's not happening at Vee Lake, but overall we haven't seen a spiked increase.

"It's always been something we've had to address, and I'm sure it will continue to always be something we have to address."

However, Palmer's husband, Mel, said he has noticed more trash since the new tipping fees came into effect.

"That's not old junk," said Mel.

"That's just starting to show up out of the blue.

"There has got to be something done to stop people from doing this." Mel suggested that the city's bi-annual amnesty week at the dump be held more often.

Recently re-elected city councillor Mark Heyck said doing that, however, is not very realistic.

"If people are getting rid of stuff and it's not amnesty week, whether you give them one week, two weeks or three weeks, they may very well go out to a remote spot and dump like that," said Heyck.

He said one possible way of catching at least the people who are illegally dumping beater cars and trucks, is to track them down using the vehicle's identification number - usually present even when a licence plate is not.

The city could also ask federal Giant Mine clean-up officials to have their security teams keep an eye out for suspicious activity on Vee Lake Road.

The city's illegal dumping fines range from $200 to $500.