Ch. 3 Land - Environment Yukon
Ch. 3 Land - Environment Yukon
Ch. 3 Land - Environment Yukon
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Northwest staging route, and an oil<br />
refinery were built during the 1940s, a<br />
war-time mentality prevailed. Speed<br />
was of the essence with all of these<br />
huge projects, and environmental<br />
considerations were often not taken<br />
into account. Little was known, for<br />
example, about the long-term effects of<br />
hydrocarbon wastes. An oil refinery<br />
was built in what is now known as the<br />
Marwell industrial area in Whitehorse.<br />
Though it only operated for a year, the<br />
refinery and the system of storage tanks<br />
and pipelines that went along with it<br />
left a trail of contamination behind<br />
them. Some sites, such as the Marwell<br />
tar pit, still have not been cleaned up.<br />
In the 1950s the Cold War brought<br />
another US military project to the<br />
north, the Distant Early Warning (DEW)<br />
Line. This system was built to detect<br />
Russian long-range bombers. It was<br />
also the era when PCBs and other<br />
hazardous substances were in<br />
widespread use. PCB-laced paint was<br />
used at the three DEW Line stations<br />
built on the <strong>Yukon</strong>’s North Coast,<br />
which are all slated for clean-up.<br />
For more than two decades, DDT was<br />
used to control mosquitoes in the<br />
<strong>Yukon</strong>. Starting in the 1940s, DDT was<br />
sprayed from airplanes over lakes and<br />
rivers, roadways, pipelines and<br />
communities. Cans of DDT were<br />
abandoned at Rainy Hollow, a former<br />
pumping station in British Columbia,<br />
just across the <strong>Yukon</strong> border. Brooks<br />
Brook on Teslin Lake, a former military<br />
site, was also heavily contaminated<br />
with DDT. These two sites were<br />
cleaned up by the federal government<br />
at great expense.<br />
Thousands of American soldiers and<br />
civilians came to the <strong>Yukon</strong> to work<br />
on these megaprojects, and their arrival<br />
created a garbage problem in the<br />
<strong>Yukon</strong>. The approach used for<br />
disposing trash in Whitehorse was<br />
typical for that era. The American army<br />
opened a dump by a cliff off Range<br />
Road, near the confluence of McIntyre<br />
Creek and the <strong>Yukon</strong> River. Debris was<br />
regularly pushed over the edge into<br />
the <strong>Yukon</strong> River 2.<br />
“Before 1939, they were dumping<br />
all the garbage in the channels<br />
of the <strong>Yukon</strong> River right where<br />
Sophie Slim used to live (near<br />
Kishwoot Island) in downtown<br />
Whitehorse.”<br />
– Paddy Jim, <strong>Ch</strong>ampagne and<br />
Aishihik First Nation Elder<br />
Paddy Jim<br />
The Range Road dump was closed in<br />
1975, and tests have shown that<br />
leachate from this dump now has only<br />
a minor impact on groundwater at the<br />
dump site and no measurable impact<br />
on the quality of <strong>Yukon</strong> River water. But<br />
First Nations and other residents downstream<br />
of the dump are still concerned<br />
about lingering contamination. Tests<br />
of sediment cores taken from Lake<br />
Laberge, downstream of the dump,<br />
indicate that a spill of polychlorinated<br />
biphenyl (PCB) occurred sometime in<br />
the 1950s. This may or may not be<br />
associated with the Range Road dump.<br />
In 1976 the City of Whitehorse tried a<br />
new disposal method. It began burning<br />
its garbage and putting the residue in<br />
the War Eagle Pit, an abandoned<br />
quarry pit located near the current<br />
Whitehorse landfill. Waste oil was<br />
disposed of in one part of the pit, a<br />
practice that continued until 1995.<br />
After 10 years, concerns about groundwater<br />
contamination led to the opening<br />
of the Son of War Eagle Pit, the<br />
territory’s first sanitary landfill.<br />
<strong>Land</strong>filling, or covering garbage with<br />
dirt, is an expensive way to dispose of<br />
trash, and the city is still working on<br />
ways to reduce the amount of waste<br />
that goes into the pit.<br />
What is so special about Special<br />
Waste?<br />
The main problem with solid waste is<br />
that it takes up space, and even in a<br />
land as vast as the <strong>Yukon</strong>, finding<br />
locations for new dumps can be a<br />
problem. Special waste, on the other<br />
hand, requires special handling. It<br />
cannot just be thrown into the dump.<br />
Special wastes include dangerous<br />
goods that are no longer used for their<br />
original purposes, and can take any<br />
form from a solid to a gas. Waste oil<br />
and biomedical waste are two<br />
examples of special wastes. Common<br />
special wastes in homes and businesses<br />
include waste oil, solvents, petroleum<br />
products, unused household cleaners,<br />
paints and pesticides. This unwanted<br />
material presents a serious real or<br />
potential hazard to health, safety, and<br />
the environment. Permits are required<br />
for handling various quantities of special<br />
waste.<br />
No exact figures are available on the<br />
amount of special waste generated<br />
Special waste can be:<br />
• flammable<br />
• corrosive<br />
• toxic<br />
• infectious<br />
•explosive<br />
•radioactive<br />
• persistent<br />
5 2 ❧ Y U K O N S T A T E O F T H E E N V I R O N M E N T R E P O R T 1999