Kerry McCluskey
Northern News Services

Nanisivik (May 20/02) - A report from a consultant hired to look at alternate uses for the Nanisivik Mine site is due out at the end of May.

In the report, consultant Consilium Nunavut Inc., will evaluate and recommend feasible uses for the mine.

Nanisivik will shut down its zinc and lead operation Sept. 30 after mining the minerals on the northern tip of Baffin Island for more than 25 years. Breakwater Resources announced the closure last year.

Residents from the neighbouring community of Arctic Bay, as well as a number of other communities in Nunavut, have expressed interest in seeing the mine and its infrastructure put to good use when workers abandon the facility this fall. While some fear the structure may be razed and the deep sea port abandoned, others have asked to see the lodgings and restaurant turned into a corrections facility, a tourism lodge or a trades school.

"It's well underway and we'll have the final report by the end of May," said Bernie MacIsaac, chair of the government of Nunavut's Nanisivik Mine working group and the senior advisor on mineral development for the Department of Sustainable Development.

"That's if there is an alternate use. We don't know that yet. But if there is, there will probably be a number of uses and not just one," he said.

Alongside the undetermined fate of the infrastructure, Arctic Bay residents and government and Inuit organization stakeholders are concerned about Breakwater Resource's abandonment and reclamation plan.

That's a document the company filed earlier this year governing their obligations for cleaning up the site.

Stephanie Briscoe of the Nunavut Impact Review Board said her organization had reviewed the clean up plan and "supported the project thumbs up."

Briscoe said NIRB forwarded their support to Indian Affairs Minister Robert Nault -- as set out in the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement -- but planned to further address issues during the Nunavut Water Board's public hearing into the plan, likely to be held this July.

A recently struck community-based committee will also review the plan and make recommendations. Levi Barnabas, Arctic Bay's community liaison co-ordinator for the Nanisivik Mine closure, said the committee planned to tour the mine site and tailings pond with the reclamation plan in hand.

"They want to visually see what's going to happen. They want to walk through the plan on the tailings pond and address issues of concern raised at public meetings," explained Barnabas.

Various community members have expressed concern that tailings from the pond may contaminate nearby ocean waters and marine mammals.

"After the tour, the committee will discuss their observations and make recommendations to the mine on improvements and things that are to our satisfaction," he said.

To further protect the interests of the hamlet and those of the government of Nunavut, MacIsaac said a second consultant was being hired to technically review the mine's reclamation plan.

"Within a month, we should have a full scale report with interim reports in between," said MacIsaac.

MacIsaac also said while plans for the closure were still somewhat premature, progress was being made and "everybody was still friends and still working towards acceptable reclamation of the site and acceptable alternate uses."

"So far, there are no big glitches," he said.

Preliminary work on the cleanup will begin this summer although the brunt of the reclamation process will be undertaken once the mine shuts down this fall. The clean up is expected to take two or three years.