Kerry McCluskey
Northern News Services

IQALUIT (Jun 14/99) - Those dreams of driving to the Northern Store on pavement and strolling down city sidewalks will just have to wait.

Unless of course pennies -- and hundreds of thousands of them -- fall from the heavens and land smack dab in the middle of Iqaluit's capital plan for this year.

That's because it will take nothing short of a small miracle to put the paving project back on the tracks.

At an average annual cost of about $500,00 per year, with a total paving price tag of about $7 million, the project would have seen much of Iqaluit's downtown core and Ring Road blessed with pavement. But after the GN's new budget was tabled and passed by the legislature earlier this month, reality set in and town officials realized the project was simply not going to go ahead this fiscal year.

Matthew Spence, an alderman for the community, said the town may yet decide to go ahead and do some of the preparatory work on their own dime this summer -- enabling the pavement and sidewalks to go in next year -- but only if given the assurance by the government that the municipality won't end up having to cover additional costs down the road.

"We need some recognition on the part of the Department of Community Government, Housing and Transportation that our contribution would be considered our equity proportion of any future paving work," said Spence.

Nor are the pavement and the sidewalks the only projects that are being affected by the lack of available capital dollars. According to Spence and to Denis Bedard, the town's director of engineering and planning, the town's new $6.7 million sewage treatment centre is also in a funding bind.

Although they received $1.8 million from the government's capital fund this year, they wanted and needed $4.2 million. That means the town is short at least $2.4 million.

"We've written letters to Mike Ferris' department (CGHT) asking him if he was prepared to commit to finding that money for us next year, which will allow the municipality to then borrow the money and bridge finances," said Bedard.

Even though they haven't received a reply from Ferris or his department, both officials said it was imperative that the project go ahead -- not only because the current sewage lagoon is ailing, but because the Nunavut Water Board and federal legislation both dictate that the sewage situation improve.

"Council's direction is clear. We move with this thing. They're driven by the fact that we are legislated to do so. We have discharge requirements that have to be met. If they're not, any one of several regulatory agencies can charge the municipality with violations to the Environmental Protection Act or the Fisheries Act," said Bedard.

Construction on the facility is set to begin late this spring and will join other capital projects currently on the go. Financed with the tail end of the federal infrastructure program dollars, Spence said adding 80 houses to the utilidor and developing a new gravel pit would proceed.