Michele LeTourneau
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (May 08/01) - "Clean them, cut them, move them," says Francois Thibault.

The Yellowknife artist is talking about the enormous steel tanks abandoned by Giant Mine. He departs from the status quo and gets creative. He has a definite idea on how the tanks should be used.

Thibault believes the tanks could be put back together as a building -- a hot, new arts centre, for example, rather than dismantled and trashed. He thinks the old YCC site is the ideal location.

"Putting them back together in a more useful way is a no-brainer," says Thibault, who points to the tank-like shape rising from the Edmonton Space and Science Centre and the circular form of the Parliament Library in Ottawa. He also remembers reading about a man who built himself a house from a tank.

"I was taking a drive and I saw all those tanks at the Giant Mine site. (A tank) is already a giant shell," he says, adding it's a natural for a building.

'Pollution solution'

He calls the proposed project "The Evolution Solution for Environmental Pollution."

The tanks, and there are over a dozen here in Yellowknife, are between 20 and 50 feet in diameter and about 20 to 60 feet tall. The ones Thibault covets were part of a tailings recovery project at Giant.

After being cleaned, they'd normally be dismantled and buried or sent to a recycler in the south.

Alex Debogorski of Eagle North Contracting estimates that one or two disassembled tanks might make a truckload, and a truckload going south would cost about $1,000.

"None of that steel is worth taking out," says Debogorski.

"They have to be disassembled, all the bolts taken out...all the time and labour involved is worth more than what they're worth in the south."

Debogorski adds:

"A person would have to be very idealistic. It takes a lot of work to come up with a solution. It's easier for them to shove it into a hole in the ground."

Thibault and Yellowknife architect Wayne Guy might just be that idealistic, not to mention realistic.

Shape works well

Guy explains there is a precedence for cylindrical shapes in buildings. But he adds that cylinders are fabricated for specific buildings.

A steel cylinder measuring 30 feet by 60 feet would cost at least $300,000, while one measuring 60 feet by 60 feet would run a tab of over $800,000. And that's not including the cost of getting them up here. It just wouldn't happen.

"They're not available typically, but we have them here. I think it's an opportunity that should not be missed," says Guy.

He can already envision their use as an arts space.

The circular shape, he says, would perfectly reflect not only aboriginal culture (the drum, the teepee), but honour our industrial heritage, while raising the utilitarian objects to an aesthetic level.

"They're like Lego blocks," adds Guy, "they can easily be accommodated into a building.

"And you can work with them in sections to create different spaces (with different uses). It's a very flexible system."

One tank could accommodate three of four storeys, at 1,800 square feet per storey.

Ron Connell, the senior environmental co-ordinator for Giant Mine, confirms that once the tanks, most of which contained diesel fuel, are cleaned, they'd be more than fit for re-use.

"And with Francois' plan, we would not have to chop the tanks up into the same size pieces. We could leave them in pieces (quarters) that could be trucked to town and reassembled," says Connell.

DIAND will have a role in deciding what happens to the tanks, says consultant to the federal department Dave Nutter.

He finds the idea intriguing.

"I think that first we have to see if the idea is really feasible."

Nutter would also be concerned with residual liability if someone else took over the fuel tanks.

"I'm not saying this is going to happen, but if somebody else took them over, and even moved them off-site and the whole plan failed, it wouldn't revert back to us.

"Since they're sold, they're sold free and clear," says Nutter.

"And I use the word sold advisedly. They could be sold for a dollar."

Thibault and Guy say the possibilities are endless for the tanks.

"Let's take a flop (Giant Mine) and flip it," says Thibault.

He and Guy are also suggesting tanks could be used to build a new library and maybe an arts school.

The pair will present an architect's model, designed by Guy, to territorial and federal officials today.