Doug Ashbury
Northern News Services

Enterprise (Nov 15/99) - The number of trucks weighed at Enterprise so far this year is down dramatically, according to Department of Transportation statistics.

Over the first 10 months of 1999, some 8,901 trucks rolled over the scales at Enterprise. This is down 40 per cent from the 14,882 trucks weighed in from January through October in 1998.

Almost all road traffic entering the Northwest Territories must pass through Enterprise. Other routes include the Liard Highway and the Dempster Highway.

Enterprise weigh scale revenue was down 11 per cent this year at $636,341 (Jan.-Oct. 1998: $715,596).

Despite the big drop in truck numbers, permits issued were only down five per cent.

With this year's truck traffic, so far, there has not been any new development to push demand for goods up, said Mark Schauerte, assistant motor vehicles director with the GNWT's Transportation Department.

"We saw the same players, the same commodities, just less of it," he said.

Truck traffic numbers will likely get a shot in the arm next year as Lupin is resupplied. Mothballed in January 1998, Lupin will reopen next year. Diavik is also hoping to commence construction of Canada's second diamond mine.

With a big increase in natural gas activity in the Deh Cho, it remains to be seen if the department will reopen the weigh scale south of Fort Liard.

The Liard scale was shut down in the early 1990s due to diminishing traffic levels.

Marvin Robinson, president of Yellowknife-based RTL Robinson Enterprises Ltd., said despite optimism about the restart of Lupin and construction of Diavik, RTL has not yet benefited from these projects.

"Lupin has little effect on us or the North," he said.

And as for the multi-million dollar Diavik earthworks contract, which includes drill and blasting and other site work such as airstrip construction, Robinson said Deton'Cho Construction, an RTL-NWT Rock Services-aboriginal joint proposal, was told by Diavik it will not be getting the multi-million dollar contract.

RTL is the NWT's largest trucking company. Among the company's biggest contracts is resupply of BHP's Ekati diamond mine.