Paula White
Northern News Services

INUVIK (July 16/99) - Concern over a number of construction and demolition projects in town has town council pushing the Workers' Compensation Board even harder to have a full-time safety officer based here.

"We should chase this a little bit," Mayor George Roach told council at its committee of the whole meeting July 12. "Next week (during the Great Northern Arts Festival) is our biggest tourist week for the year and...there are messes all over the place."

Roach was referring in part to the town's litter problem, but he was also talking about the two major demolition projects going on right now.

One, Grollier Hall, has been under way for the past four or five months and the other, the laundromat, for more than a month. Roach and other members of council have serious concerns that the appropriate safety measures are not being followed.

For example, Roach and Fire Chief Al German pointed out that all demolition sites must, by law, be surrounded by a fence in the interest of public safety. The Grollier Hall site is surrounded by a makeshift fence consisting of parts of the framework of the building itself and orange netting.

"What's to stop a kid from going around that?" Roach asked, referring to a spot where the netting had fallen down. The laundromat site is surrounded by barrier tape.

Laundromat owner Paul Komaromi declined to comment.

German said another issue that needs to be addressed by a safety officer is the disposal of dangerous goods and hazardous wastes, such as asbestos. He said recently an individual deposited some asbestos at the town dump site without a permit. The individual has since covered the material with plastic sheeting, but German described it as "flimsy."

"It's like a Christmas present," he said. "Everybody wants to look under the wrapping."

Aside from the demolition projects, Roach said the town needs a safety officer to oversee a number of other projects in Inuvik. These include construction of the new hospital, a female young offenders' facility and Aurora College campus, as well as several piling excavation projects, the installation of natural gas pipelines and "asbestos removal here, there and everywhere."

Roach first began his campaign for a full-time safety officer back in May. He wrote a letter to Michael Miltenberger, Minister Responsible for the Workers' Compensation Board, in which he mentioned an incident at the Grollier Hall site where a man was injured after falling several feet from a scaffolding.

Miltenberger responded by informing Roach that Inuvik did, in fact, have a full-time safety officer but that he was based in Yellowknife.

Roach said he then attempted to contact this officer four times. He was eventually successful, and was told the man would be in Inuvik July 12. He did not make it, but another WCB representative did. This representative was scheduled to meet with German on July 12 but he failed to show up as well.

"So we think we might be getting the runaround," Roach commented. The mayor also met with JoAnne Deneron, chair of the WCB's board of directors, in late June while in Hay River on other business.

It was decided at the July 12 council meeting that Roach and German would take photographs of the two demolition sites on July 13. Coincidentally, the two happened to meet up with the WCB representative while filming the laundromat site, and expressed their concerns to him.