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City wants to phase out honey bags

By Herb Mathisen
Northern News Services
Published Tuesday, January 20, 2009

SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - In a month or so, the city will bring recommendations to council on how to get houseboaters, residents in Old Town and the Woodyard, and people living along the Ingraham Trail, to stop using honey bags.

"The honey bags should have been phased out quite a while ago," said Dennis Kefalas, director of public works.

NNSL Photo/Graphic

Houseboater and Yellowknife Glass Recyclers owner Matthew Grogono stands by his honey bag can. He says consultation and a good working relationship with users would be helpful as the city tries to phase out honey bags. - Herb Mathisen/NNSL photo

Although there is no explicit clause in the city's water and sewers bylaw outlining prohibitions from using honey bags, Dennis Althouse, superintendent of operations and maintenance, said a grandfathered agreement was reached between the city and property owners in the late-1970s stating when properties owned before 1969 changed hands, alternative waste management systems would be put in place.

Kefalas said this has not happened.

He said the city does not know how many Yellowknifers use honey buckets.

Dave Weaver, from Weaver and Devore's, said the company sells on average 200 to 250 honey bags per month. Grogono said many people "double-bag,” so that could skew numbers.

The city also gives out honey bags.

Yellowknifer recently reported that residents in Old Town were angered by city signs posted without consultation in December at various honey bag pick-up areas, warning the public about the potential dangers of the waste and for residents to consider using composting toilets.

Matthew Grogono has lived in Old Town for 25 years and has followed city attempts to phase out the bags for as long.

He said the city and honey bag users need to develop a positive working relationship.

"They haven't been successful at communicating their aspirations very clearly, judging by the response of the monuments that they put in people's yards."

One man contacted Grogono and told him he came home to find a sign in his driveway. The man, Grogono said with a laugh, turned the warning into firewood.

"That aggressive action was responded to with more aggressive action," said Grogono. "But it did bring the whole issue to the forefront, which I think is great."

Grogono said he is open to exploring the city's options, "discussing them intelligently and coming up with a collectively acceptable resolution and move on to it."

He said he thinks honey bags have stuck around in Yellowknife's Old Town – an area without underground sewage infrastructure – because they are "simple and somewhat efficient," he said.

Kefalas said the city is moving on the issue to deliver services better – one of city council's goals. "Collecting honey bags is not a very efficient way of dealing with sewage," he said.

Honey bags are picked up from 12 drop-off locations in Old Town by city workers on Monday mornings.

The city owns the responsibility to look after sewage and although Althouse said there is a "quaintness" to the service, he said: "We have to realize it's 2009 and we can't keep on running services like it's the 1960s."

Kefalas said another driving factor is the city's potential landfill expansion and recommendations made in a bird study to close the Fiddler's Lake lagoon honey bag pit – where all honey bags wind up.

Some of the ideas being floated are encouraging residents to install composting, propane or chemical toilets. Kefalas said the city will see if it has funds to subsidize a portion of the switchover.

The method Kefalas said he would most prefer is if residents were to install a sewage pump to store sewage in a tank and get onto the truck-out service.

Another option being discussed would allow residents to keep their honey bags, but deliver them to a dumping site at lift station #1, Kefalas said.

"Individuals using honey bags as a means of disposing their waste would have the option of just dumping it into our device that would allow it to lacerate it or shred it and then it would become part of the regular sewage and it wouldn't be handled by city forces at all," he said.

Grogono said the upkeep of the facility could present a problem.

"Setting something up that is going to have be policed would be problematic. We need to design a user-friendly system," he said.