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Clean-up coming

Brent Reaney
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (May 04/05) - The Colomac clean up plan was recently approved and work should begin this summer.

Indian and Northern Affairs officials have been working with the Tlicho First Nation since 1999 to develop the clean up plan, but it's unclear if Dogrib-owned firms will get the contracts.

"As far as we're concerned, we would have liked to have a sole source contract, but for whatever reason, they couldn't do it," said Nick Mansell, chief operating officer for Behcho Ko Development Corp., which owns Tli Cho Logistics.

The total cost of the remaining work has been estimated by INAC at $35-40 million.

Until recently, Tli Cho Logistics had the contract to clean the contaminated water at the site. Behcho Ko Development Corp. has bid for the clean-up work, but will have to wait until mid-May to see if they won.

"We want to be part of this remediation since it's on our land, in our area," said Behcho Ko Chief Clifford Daniels.

The work is being bid on by 51-per-cent owned aboriginal companies, but approval of a five-year water licence, which could come within weeks, is still needed.

The migration of caribou through the mine site is of particular concern, and Melo said traditional knowledge was used to mitigate impacts.

"Protecting the caribou path became extremely important," said clean-up project manager Octavio Melo.

Instead of going through the expensive process of establishing corridors through 50-100 foot high piles of waste rock, elders said it was only necessary to build berms around the open pits, to ensure animals and people did not fall in.

This summer, 10,000 cubic metres of soil contaminated with diesel fuel should be moved to a specially-lined storage basin.

Treatment of the contaminated soil and rock - as well as the large-scale demolition of buildings - should begin in the summer of 2006, said Melo.

Located 222 kilometres Northwest of Yellowknife, the Colomac gold mine was sporadically operated from 1989 to 1997. With owner Royal Oak Mines in receivership, INAC was charged with cleaning up the facility in 1999.

The site's exposed tailings will be covered with rock, at a cost of about $3 million.

A $3-million dam will also be built by 2007.

All of the buildings on the site will be torn down.