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Environmental charity misses boat Casey Lessard Northern News Services Published Monday, July 9, 2012
"We were fully expecting this," von Mirbach said. "We were wildly late. It's our own fault. If we had wanted to be seriously considered, we would have had to have submitted the application six weeks earlier than we did." The deadline for status was May 18. The application von Mirbach signed is dated June 22. The charity is most concerned about the increase in shipping traffic in the region, which raises concerns about impacts on wildlife from engine noise, the wake of ships, the disruption to ice, and sharing tight passageways with ships, von Mirbach said. "The growth of shipping needed to service that project is huge in an area that has virtually no commercial shipping traffic currently," he said. "It's going from a few ships a year to annual traffic of several hundred ships a year. The question to us is not whether you should do that or not, but how do you manage that in a way that reduces the impacts." Baffinland vice-president of corporate affairs Greg Missal disputes there will be much increase in traffic. "There's a fair bit of ship traffic that exists in the Hudson Strait already because of projects that exist in northern Quebec or ship traffic into Hudson Bay," Missal said. "Everybody knows that our plan is to have a year-round project which requires us to have shipping in a year-round manner. We expect we'll have ships travelling every two to four days. It's an essential part of the project." Von Mirbach takes in comfort knowing others close to the situation will stand up for environmental concerns regarding the project, which will set a standard for Northern development. According to documents on the NIRB website, three parties - besides those granted intervenor status by default - will be intervenors in the hearings: Nunavik Marine Region Impact Review Board and Makivik Corporation in Iqaluit July 16 to 20, and Zacharias Kunuk (on behalf of NITV, Isuma TV, Kigullitt Productions Inc.) in Iglulik July 23 to 25. No one applied to be an intervenor in Pond Inlet at the July 26 to 28 hearings. The intervenors automatically given the status are Qikiqtani Inuit Association, Government of Nunavut, Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada, Canadian Transportation Agency, Environment Canada, Department of Fisheries and Oceans, Parks Canada, Natural Resources Canada, Transport Canada, and the Coast Guard. "This is a game-changer because there's no other project in the Canadian Arctic to equal its scale," he said. "A Baffinland VP called it a benchmark for sustainable development in the Arctic, and that's exactly how we see it as well. We're interested in contributing to that discussion at the hearing." Missal is confident his company's actions are getting a proper review. "The NIRB process is a very extensive, thorough process," he said. "We've been going through this for three years now. The process covers a wide range of interests, and we've been working with those groups for a long time now in order to get to where we are in the process." If the charity had status, von Mirbach would have had the ability to cross-examine and be cross-examined by other parties involved in the process. Not truly interested in having that status, he said his team will still attend this month's hearing in Iqaluit to speak as a member of the public. "We think we have information to offer, we have ideas and data we can share that can help make the right decision, and we're looking for the right opportunities to do that," he said. "We will be there and we will be listening to what Northerners are saying about the project." Missal had some final words for von Mirbach and others regarding the project's potential environmental impacts. "We're going to manage it in the best possible way we can," he said. "We're going to minimize any impacts we have. And of course, we're going to monitor it. Local people will be able to see first-hand any effects we're having."
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