KINNGAIT/CAPE DORSET - Cape Dorset's Kingnait Inn is open for business and getting cleaned up after a sewage leak prompted a public health order to shut the hotel down on May 6.

Cape Dorset's Kingnait Inn on Aug. 6. The hotel is now open and in the process of being cleaned up after a public health order shut the it down in May. - contributed photo

SAO John Ivey said the sewage is now being held in temporary storage tanks, but was unsure of what a permanent solution will look like.

"They rerouted the sewage pipes to two external pump-out tanks and so the water goes in there and we pump them out once or twice daily," said Ivey. "It’s a summertime fix so we're curious to see what's going to happen for the winter." Ivey said while the clean-up appears to be nearing completion, the hotel will still need to repair its sewage system before winter begins.

"Obviously this is a Band-Aid solution," he said. "If they're going to remain open they would have to have an enhanced sewage pump-out system in place because right now it's just exposed to the elements."

Ivey said he is confident hotel management has a strategy in place to properly deal with the hotel's waste this winter.

"There are pipes running out of the building into two tanks and that will freeze in a heartbeat and they know that, so I'm sure they have some plans," he said.

Hotel owner and South Baffin MLA Fred Schell said he could not comment on what the plans are for the hotel because hotel manager Cheryl Constantineau is in charge of the clean-up.

"I don’t have anything to do with it anymore, I have a manager that does it," he said.

Constantineau did not respond to media requests by press time on Thursday.

Director of municipal works Mike Hayward said there is still frozen sewage under the hotel, but a large amount of the clean-up is completed.

"There's still a little bit of ice underneath it, but the majority of it is all cleaned up and they have a trench dug there and we have our sewage trucks pumping it out every morning," he said.

Ivey said the amount of sewage that leaked during the winter months is the reason ice remains under the building.

"There's still ice under the hotel," Ivey said. "When you consider the 200,000 litres that went under there in the winter."

Ivey said he and other hamlet staff are pleased that the hotel is now open and that sewage is being cleaned up.

"It's between them and the health department," he said. "We were just concerned about the sewage."