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SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
The Northwest Territories Power Corporation is preparing to send the Canadian Forces a claim for $2.4 million in compensation more than two months after a Griffon helicopter knocked out power to the city of Yellowknife.

The Canadian Forces helicopter was conducting operations 10 km northwest of Yellowknife as part of Exercise Arctic RAM when it accidentally clipped a Snare Hydro transmission line Feb. 13, leaving all three phases of the line lying on the ground.

Snare Hydro is Yellowknife's main source of power. In the wake of the damage, power to the city was supplied by diesel generators from the Jackfish Lake power plant and Bluefish Hydro, north of Prosperous Lake.

"As soon as this event occurred my sense was that this was going to be north of a million dollars," said president and CEO of NTPC Emanuel DaRosa. "We were burning diesel at $100,000 a day."

At $1 million over 10 days, burning diesel was the single biggest cost associated with the incident, said DaRosa.

NTPC, which has covered the costs until this point, also had to pay for a contractor from the United States; helicopters to fly crews to and from the site, which was otherwise inaccessible; and the materials needed to complete the repairs, among other things.

"Certainly it does hamper us from a financial perspective to have to carry this," said DaRosa. "We don't have any particular emergency funds that we tap into. We just have to basically work within our operating capital."

None of these costs have been transferred to customers, though DaRosa said customers would be affected if the military refused to compensate the power corporation.

"But we anticipate that we're going to be compensated for the costs that we've incurred," he said.

NTPC is conducting an internal review of its claim before submitting it to the military, a process DaRosa expects to take about a week.

"We want to be able to ensure that all costs are for certain attributable to this particular incident," said DaRosa. "(The military) can ask us to provide further detail on any one of the components. They can also question the merit of us asking to be compensated for any one component. But from our perspective everything we've put has been direct response."

The military has been assisting the power corporation to ensure the claim is submitted properly.

Once submitted, the claim will be investigated by the legal branch of the military, said Lt. (Navy) Paul Pendergast of Joint Task Force North.

"At the end of the process ... the claim could be paid or parts of it could be paid or none of it could be paid if it was decided it wasn't valid. That's what the process is for - to make sure that it's fair and that the claim is processed in a responsible way. There's a procedure to follow," he said.

Both DaRosa and Pendergast anticipate it will take the military months to resolve the claim.

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