The town of Dawson City, Yukon, will not hold a referendum on the controversial location of a proposed sewage lagoon, after town council rejected a petition from 270 residents on Thursday.

The petition, spearheaded by resident Jorn Meier, had more than the 199 confirmed names required by territorial law to force the town to hold a municipal ballot on the issue.

But at the town council meeting Thursday evening, Mayor John Steins and council ruled that, based on the advice of two lawyers, the petition may not be legally binding.

"On six of those [petition] sheets, the proposition or the question or the proposed bylaw that they wished Dawson to enact was missing," Steins told CBC News.

"Even though I believe that council has faith that most people who signed it understand the question, unfortunately, from a legal point of view it's simply not good enough."
 
Steins said the petitioners did not have their ducks in a row this time, but there is nothing to stop them from starting another petition.

Meier and some other residents in Dawson, a town of about 1,300, have objected to the court-ordered lagoon being built near the entrance to the town, close to its underground water source.