Kerry McCluskey
Northern News Services

Pelly Bay (Feb 14/00) - The Government of Nunavut is looking a gift horse in the mouth and it could end up costing them $400,000, according to Quinn Taggart, the senior administrative officer of the hamlet of Kugaaruk (Pelly Bay).

He said unless the GN scrambled and acted on an offer put forward by the Department of National Defense, the hamlet was in danger of losing nearly half a million dollars.

"Any chance to get federal bucks, we take it. They don't come too often," said Taggart.

"But DND needs a commitment from the GN otherwise they're going to move on. We're hopeful, but nobody is making any commitments yet," he said.

The situation developed when the hamlet's current source of gravel came close to exhaustion. A new source was identified, but it was 20 kilometres inland and the cost of a necessary bridge and road came in at about $1.2 million.

When hamlet officials realized how close the alternate source was to the former DEW-line site, they approached Nunavut Tunngavik with a possible plan.

Scheduled for clean-up in 2002, the site is one of 15 that NTI and DND are committed to restoring by 2008.

Rob Martel, DND's DEW-line site project manager, was approached.

"The hamlet, through NTI, shared with us their plans to eventually build a road to access the granular material," said Martel.

"They suggested we might be interested in funding that."

Martel said DND took the suggestion into serious consideration and did a cost-benefits analysis. They concluded that if the hamlet constructed the road themselves, making the cleanup easier and more environmentally friendly while opening up access to the gravel, the military could save up to $400,000.

DND agreed to further consider the possible partnership and while road construction is not part of their mandate, they offered to contribute the money if the hamlet could complete the road by the end of 2000. The cost of the road would be covered with capital funds from the GN's budget.

Martel said they had to be firm on the completion date because, to begin the clean-up in 2002, the contract needed to be awarded in 2001 to allow all necessary project details to be included in the tender.

"We need to know what the issues are before we award the contract. So far, we have not received any official response from anybody," said Martel.

"We have no knowledge of where they're going or what they're plans are."

Therein lies Taggart's frustration. He said because of the GN's delay in the 2000-2001 budget, all of Kugaaruk's (Pelly Bay's) capital plans are on hold.

"If we don't have the supplies on the barge this year, we can kiss that $400,000 good bye," said Taggart.

Mike Ferris, the deputy minister of community government and transportation, said he understood the tight schedule, but needed a letter of confirmation from DND as well as a structural review of the bridge.

"If it was to proceed all in one year, that's a large sum of money," said Ferris.

"$400,000 is not a large amount to offset that."

He added that assuming the bridge design was strong enough to hold the trucks and the GN received DND's written commitment, Minister Jack Anawak would commit to taking the special request to cabinet.