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SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - A development corporation in Ndilo has partnered with a Tlicho-owned engineering firm to form a new company specializing in the cleanup of former mines and other contaminated sites in the NWT and beyond.

Deton' Cho Corporation, the business arm of the Yellowknives Dene, formed a joint venture with Aboriginal Engineering Ltd. (AEL), owned by the Tlicho Investment Corporation, on May 8.

The Tlicho Investment Corporation-owned Aboriginal Engineering Ltd. will partner with the Deton' Cho Corporation to bid on remediation projects in the NWT, including the Giant Mine Remediation Project. The following representatives got together to mark the new joint venture. Shown here are, from left, Behchoko elder James Rabesca, Dettah Chief Ed Sangris, Tli Cho Grand Chief George MacKenzie, Ndilo Chief Fred Sangris and Deton’ Cho Corporation CEO Roy Erasmus Jr. - photo courtesy of Rick Miller

Though the financial details have not yet been finalized, Rick Miller, business development manager for Deton' Cho, said the ultimate intent is for Deton' Cho to own 50 per cent of the engineering firm.

"We now have access to Aboriginal Engineering," said Miller. "It's the first time historically that the two groups have come together in any real tangible fashion whereby they're saying 'let's share resources.'

AEL "can call up and say, 'We want to go over to Tundra (the former gold mine located 240 km northeast of Yellowknife); let's get your gear (which includes loaders and excavators and) ... get your operators over there.'"

According to Miller, Deton' Cho is approached regularly by southern engineering firms seeking aboriginal participation to strengthen their bids on potential Northern projects. But Miller wants to flip that equation.

"Our goal is for us to subcontract southern companies and not the other way around," he said. "By partnering with the Tlicho, we want to build our own capacity so all the money is going to stay in the North (and) the employees are going to stay in the North."

The new joint venture, which was not named as of press time, will also seek to export its services outside the NWT.

"We want to have our people trained up and sent to do remediation work anywhere through the North and not even (just) exclusively to Canada. We're looking beyond our borders," said Miller.

AEL has worked on several mine remediation projects, including the former Discovery Mine site, since it formed in 2000. Its staff numbers around 12 during the quieter winter months to between 50 to 120 during the summer – prime remediation time.

More recently, in the 2007-2008 fiscal year, AEL did clean-up work – which includes the collection and disposal of hazardous material and the demolition of structures left behind by operators – at the former Colomac gold mine, 22 km north of Yellowknife, where $14.7 million was spent in total. About $1 million of that was spent with AEL, which supplied a large majority of the staff on site, according to Bob Johnson, general manager for the firm.

Though he could not cite specific numbers, Johnson said "the two groups have lost quite a bit of employment with the economic downturn that's happening.

"So combining the two provides an avenue for both groups to provide employment to their people," while also strengthening their bids on contracts.

Aboriginal Engineering is currently bidding on work, added Johnson.

"If we completed some projects together first, they could get a feel for the business," he said of Deton' Cho.