Richard Gleeson
Northern News Services
Yellowknife (Jun 11/01) - It is about as far away from the Arctic as you can get on this planet, but Australia is coping with many of the challenges familiar to the NWT and Nunavut.
For one thing, the country is responsible for cleaning up three research stations and an abandoned U.S. military site in Antarctica.
One of the few benefits of the dark history of industry and government using the Arctic as a dumping ground is the expertise Canada has in cleaning up toxic messes left in cold places.
Enter, Scott Mitchell and John Poland.
As head of the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs contaminated sites division, Mitchell oversees the clean-up of contaminated sites in the Northwest Territories and Nunavut.
Poland, a Queen's University professor, provides scientific support for the military clean-ups Mitchell oversees.
Last year, Poland presented a paper he and Mitchell wrote documenting the clean-up of a military site south of Hall Beach to the second International Conference on Contaminants in Freezing Ground, held in Cambridge, England.
The presentation impressed the Australian delegates enough to invite the two down under for an information exchange.
"We re-hashed the paper we had given in England for the rest of the people at the (Antarctic Research) Institute," Mitchell said.
"They're just starting to initiate their cleanup in Antarctica. They have the science that says what needs to be done, but they're not sure how to do it."
Mitchell offered up one example of how Canadian experience will benefit clean-ups of the frozen south.
Much of the clean-up work here is done on abandoned military sites, where PCBs are commonplace. The Australians had not checked for PCBs.
"They weren't looking for PCBs because they didn't bring any in there (to their research stations). But they had also taken over a military site."
PCBs release gases suspected to be causes of cancer and birth defects. They appear in high concentrations in the fat of some arctic marine mammals.
"I asked if they had checked transformers and capacitors and resistors used in old radio equipment and paint.
"They had looked for lead in the paint, but not PCBs."
Different standards
The standard for clean-up in Antarctica is higher than in the Arctic.
Under a treaty approved in 1986, all countries operating on the frozen continent have to carry all of their garbage out. In the Arctic, only hazardous waste must be removed.
The information flowed both ways. For the last 10 years the Australians have been developing permanent barriers to prevent contaminants from spreading into the surrounding environment.
Mitchell hopes to employ that expertise on Resolution Island, an abandoned military site off the Baffin coast.
"We know we cannot clean up all the PCBs and contaminants that are in the pathways to the marine environment because of the fractured rock," Mitchell said.
Technology developed by the Australians will go into permanent barriers to stop the flow of PCBs from cracks in the rock to the ocean.
Australians from the research institute will get a first-hand look at Canadian Arctic cleanups when they visit Resolution Island this summer.
