Jess McDiarmid
Northern News Services
Published Wednesday, January 2, 2008

YELLOWKNIFE - The City of Yellowknife wants to become home to a 4,000-square-metre centre for environmental sciences with a price tag upwards of $60 million.

The proposed Yellowknife facility, directed by a steering committee of municipal, territorial, federal and private organizations, would serve as the hub of a territorial network of labs and testing facilities.

The remediated Con Mine site is one location under consideration for the site of a environmental sciences centre, which could then be heated by geothermal energy from the Robertson shaft. - NNSL File photo

"Yellowknife is basically government and non-renewable resources as far as industry goes," said Mayor Gord Van Tighem. "This provides a real opportunity for economic diversification in the future."

The facility would broaden the economy, lessening reliance on the diamond industry and vulnerability should diamond prices drop, said the city's director of economic development Peter Neugebauer, adding it's not likely the value of diamonds will fall anytime soon.

"It's a new industry," said Neugebauer. "In spite of this diamond focus, we're really lucky. Yellowknife has a short history but a good history in business and as a site of government. So the idea is to broaden the basic stuff, to have that broad base for the economy."

The centre would put the testing and laboratory work that goes on across the city, some of it in ATCO trailers, under one roof. Companies could buy or rent space or use it on a seasonal basis.

It could also provide facilities for labs and testing that currently has to be shipped out.

While there isn't yet a specific location for the facility, which planners hope would sit on a 30-hectare site to allow expansion, one area that's being considered is the remediated Con Mine site.

That opens the possibility of using geothermal energy from the mine to heat and cool the centre. It would also require an expansion of city utilities, which would make it easier to develop nearby areas.

The Yellowknife facility would be the first step in the so-called NWT Network of Environmental Sciences, Technology and Innovation Centres, a network that would expand throughout the territory.

The project would likely take years to complete and faces challenges such as bringing together all levels of government and private business and finding the money, said Vicki McCulloch, a consultant with Terriplan Consultants, a firm that's working with the steering committee on the project.

But among key benefits would be the "synergy" created by having so much work going on in the same place and the creation of Northern "specialties" in research and science, said McCulloch.

"It's a really unique opportunity for Yellowknife and the territory," she said.

The steering committee is finishing a proposal for a business plan, which it hopes to complete by March 2008. That plan will be a "road map" to getting the facility in Yellowknife, said Van Tighem.

"We can be a Northern environmental research centre," said Van Tighem. "We can become a centre of excellence for mine abandonment and restoration projects.

"It would speak extremely well for the long-term sustainability of Yellowknife."