Yumimi Pang
Northern News Services
Published Monday, July 21, 2008

IQALUIT - Premier Paul Okalik and Iqaluit Mayor Elisapee Sheutiapik kicked off the Iqaluit End-of-Life Vehicles Repatriation program on July 11, with both politicians trying their hand operating the metal crusher.

John Hussey, the city's chief administrative officer, noted that the project will essentially rid Iqaluit of metal that has been accumulating for decades.

"Everybody wants to see this work," said Hussey, noting that if feasible in Iqaluit, then the territory's other communities could benefit from similar projects.

The crusher arrived with the equipment used by Gestion Logistique to crush and remove the scrap metal to the south. Gestion Logistique, which is run by the son of the owner of Recyclage Levis, has undertaken the same terms with the city as Recyclage Levis had previously.

The Government of Nunavut contributed $100,000 to the program. The city is responsible for the cost of moving residential vehicles to the crushing site, while businesses can dump their scrap metal at no cost.

"They've given us an indication that they can't take out all the metal in one season," said Sheutiapik. "It's more than we had thought."

Dumping of vehicles has been banned in the city since 2006.

Hussey said it was difficult to estimate the amount of scrap metal or end-of-life vehicles in the city, but gave a figure of 80 to 100 vehicles from the residential perspective.

"The city has been experiencing a large volume of scrap metal. It takes a lot of space in our landfill, and decreases the life expectancy of the landfill. It makes the city very unsightly," he said. "This is going to help beautify it."

The project will run seven days a week for one month, and it will be assessed about 20 days into its operation. Hussey said the hope is that the project will be considered beneficial and then it may be run in the city in future years. It is the first significant project to remove end-of-life vehicles and scrap metal from Nunavut.

"We're interested in the lessons learned from this Iqaluit roll-out project for other communities in Nunavut," said John Lamb, Nunavut's assistant deputy environment minister. "We're not pre-judging the project other than other communities have end-of-life vehicles and scrap metal that they'd like to get rid of."

Lamb said the end of life vehicles removal project works in concert with Pinasuaqtavut 2004-2009, which had an goal of repatriation of used vehicles.

In other Nunavut communities, such as Cambridge Bay, work has been ongoing to remove waste metal dumps, considered a growing problem related to accumulated petroleum waste products, PCBs, and other dangerous chemicals.