Whitehorse Daily Star

Company files lawsuit against Watson Lake

A waste management company is claiming unjust enrichment,

By Emily Blake on May 25, 2017

A waste management company is claiming unjust enrichment, misfeasance and breach of contract by the town of Watson Lake following a dispute over the deposit of waste.

Northern Environment Services (NES) recently filed a suit against the town in Yukon Supreme Court.

It claims the company has suffered and continues to suffer losses and damages and is owed general, special, aggravated and punitive damages, interest, and costs.

The suit alleges that NES was subject to unfair restrictions and scrutiny that were not applied to their competitor.

According to the statement of claim, around 2014 Watson Lake stopped providing waste collection services for commercial businesses and NES inquired into the costs for providing these services.

Around July 2014, they were advised by the town’s CEO that solid waste deposited by the company at the town’s waste management facility would be considered “sorted large loads” and charged $69 per tonne.

Based on this information, NES says, they entered into fixed priced contracts with customers.

Under Watson Lake’s garbage bylaws, $69 per tonne is the established tipping fee for “sorted large loads”, and there is a fee of $250 per tonne for “mixed waste unsorted large loads”.

But the bylaws do not expressly define either load type nor provide guidelines for them.

The suit claims that despite information provided by the CEO, in February 2015 without any prior warning, Watson Lake’s Public Works manager Alan Puckett began charging NES the “mixed unsorted large load” rate of $250 per tonne.

NES claims that its competitor continued to be charged the $69 fee despite depositing loads of solid waste with the same characteristics.

The company disputed that their loads were unsorted and continued to pay the $69 rate.

But Watson Lake advised the company that they owed $38,345.32, the difference between the disputed loads.

After a final demand for payment was issued by the town, the suit says, NES paid the disputed fees in protest in order to retain their permits and gain access to the sewage waste treatment facility to deposit liquid waste.

Following the payment, NES entered into an oral contract with Watson Lake to allow them to dispose of liquid waste at the facility in return for paying a flat fee of $100 per month.

Notwithstanding, NES claims, Watson Lake refused to issue NES a key and required them to contact the town during business hours to access the facility.

The company alleges it observed its competitor gain access to the facility outside of normal business hours, and believes they were provided a key.

“These requirements effectively discriminated against NES as compared to the competitor and caused NES to suffer loss and damage,” states the claim.

Between May and August 2016, NES regularly disposed of liquid waste from septic tanks at the facility.

But on Aug. 17, Watson Lake notified NES that two samples of liquid waste collected from NES’ trucks exceeded the threshold limits for levels of extractable petroleum hydrocarbons (EPH).

The town advised NES that it would no longer accept liquid waste from them.

NES claims that its competitor was not subject to the same oversight and restrictions.

It adds that Watson Lake’s Sewer and Water Bylaw does not establish or define threshold limits for EPH or other substances deposited at the facility.

In response, NES advised Watson Lake that they were without any bylaw authority in applying post-treatment effluent standards to pre-treatment waste deposited at the facility and that their sampling and testing protocols were flawed.

NES claims Watson Lake staff failed to sign and properly seal the samples before they were taken to the laboratory for analysis, and that testing protocols failed to properly account for household products that produced hydrocarbons.

NES also claims that the town’s test results were significantly different from the independently verified test results of samples taken by the company.

The suit claims that the company was being unreasonably denied the ability to conduct its business and deposit liquid waste from its customers.

Between August and September, NES disputed the decision. On Sept. 15, Watson Lake told NES it was conditionally reinstating their access to the facility.

They required NES to get authorization before depositing liquid waste, and written confirmation from residential customers that their sewage was from private residences.

If random sampling and testing found waste to be in excess of 5,000 micrograms per litre, the town said, they would be denied access to the facility.

On Sept. 28, NES appealed this decision on the basis that the conditions were “patently unreasonable and without lawful basis.”

On Dec. 21, the town told NES that they needed to provide a certificate endorsed by each of their commercial customers stating that their liquid waste contained no petroleum hydrocarbons and acknowledging that if tests of the waste found hydrocarbons, they could be fined.

The suit alleges that Watson Lake told NES it was prepared to provide the form of certificate within the next couple of days. Despite repeated requests, the certificate was not approved until March 21, 2017.

Due to the delays, scrutiny and refusal to allow them unrestricted access to the facility, NES claims, they were unable to operate their liquid waste management operations between Aug. 24, 2016 and March 21, 2017.

Furthermore NES claims they were unfairly denied a contract with the town.

In June 2016, Watson Lake issued a tender seeking bids to supply labour, materials and equipment to excavate, locate and turn off a corporate valve at a water main.

NES claims that despite submitting the only bid, they did not hear back from the town.

The following month, they discovered Watson Lake had sole-sourced a contract with the competitor and not required them to comply with the work conditions.

The town has yet to respond to the suit, and the claims have not been heard in court.

Comments (5)

Up 1 Down 1

Damon on Apr 5, 2018 at 8:23 pm

I highly doubt it played out this way.
This company and its owners should be ashamed! There are rules that the town of Watson lake has put in place that they obviously did not follow and now their suing! Because they broke the rules! It’s companies like this that plague our community and ruin it for the rest of us.
Shame on you NES shame on you.

Up 4 Down 2

ralpH on May 27, 2017 at 1:41 pm

Some really good points Mugsy but also lived there and have to wonder if there are two sides to this. Albeit there should be a consorted effort by council to make sure local companies get as much of a boost as they can. For not doing that, I agree shame on council, and question their competency.

Up 11 Down 2

Mugsy on May 27, 2017 at 8:55 am

Sounds like TOWL has NOT been playing fair at all. How can one company have so many restrictions and the other be given the keys and no rules to follow. Shame on the town council, I thought I voted in fair and competent people, guess I was wrong. Good luck NES, glad you took this all the way, enough is enough. Let's be fair with our business in this little town.

Up 5 Down 4

ralpH on May 25, 2017 at 6:11 pm

@Time to have a bingo? What other lawsuits are you referring too. Live here and only this one I am aware of. And besides no Municipality has ever been litigated against for enforcing bylaws.

Up 24 Down 2

Time to have a bingo? on May 25, 2017 at 3:32 pm

Lawsuit number 3 against Watson lake? Soon to be 4?

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