Paul Bickford
Northern News Services
Monday, April 16, 2007

HAY RIVER - The fuel may be gone, but opposition to storing millions of litres of diesel fuel on the frozen Hay River apparently is not going anywhere.

In the fall, Thebacha MLA Michael Miltenberger raised concern about 50 million litres of fuel stored this past winter in barges at the Northern Transportation Company Ltd. (NTCL) facilities in Hay River.

"If they do it again next year, it will be an issue, maybe even louder," Miltenberger said recently.

As of April 1, all the fuel had been offloaded from the barges and trucked to the Diavik diamond mine.

"It was a high-risk, unacceptable way to store fuel," Miltenberger said, adding it threatened Great Slave Lake and the Mackenzie River.

Miltenberger said NTCL should build a temporary, land-based facility for fuel storage, "If they're going to get into the fuel storage business, then do it right."

Hay River Mayor John Pollard said the barge storage worked out fairly well.

However, he said using barges is not an ideal long-term solution, noting there may not be enough fuel storage capacity in Hay River.

"I think I'd be encouraging NTCL to put in a tank farm down there," he said. "That's the long-term solution as far as I'm concerned."

When contacted, NTCL spokesperson Sunny Munroe declined to comment, other than to say the fuel was offloaded by April 2.

The fuel was stored in the barges to be close to the winter roads.

Last year's short winter road season forced Diavik to fly some fuel into the mine from the South.