QAUSUITTUQ/RESOLUTE - Resolute will receive a new permanent oil spill kit after Operation Nanook takes place near the community next summer, according to Brig.-Gen. David Millar.

Next year's operation, which is scheduled to take place Aug. 6-26, will simulate an oil spill in Lancaster Sound. Millar said the exercise will use new techniques specifically designed for cold-water spills.

"We're timing it with the arrival of the permanent oil spill kit," he said. "We've identified that there is a requirement to have that same kit up in Resolute because you're not going to want to take the time to fly it out of here because it's a lot of kit. You want to have that capability in place."

An increase in traffic in the Northwest Passage prompted the decision to simulate an oil spill near Resolute, Millar said.

"The Northwest Passage is not well charted yet and it is very problematic," he said. "The threats to navigation are fairly high, the likelihood that we're going to have an oil spill because it has happened in the past, even here in Frobisher Bay, is high."

Dr. Kenneth Lee, executive director of the Centre for Offshore Oil, Gas and Energy Research with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, said it is too early to tell exactly what his department's role will be in next year's operation. His research has developed a method of breaking up oil into oil droplets, a method that is usually done using chemicals. The method involves adding minerals to the oil and churning the water, which breaks up the oil and allows the small droplets to be dispersed into the water column.

"We've found that when we mix the minerals with oil and mixing energy, we can also generate very small oil droplets," he said. "Instead of using chemicals, we're using natural minerals."

He said minerals are added to the oil and a ship's propeller can be used to break up the oil into droplets.

"We use the ship as a giant mix-master," he said. "The energy from the propellers break up the oil." He said coast guard ships could transport minerals to a spill site in fire hoses that already exist on the ships.

"We're looking at something most ships could do in the Arctic," he said. "I'm trying to develop something that's user-friendly, what can we use that's readily available."

The operation will be lead by the Canadian Coast Guard and will include Transport Canada, the Department of Fisheries and Oceans and the Canadian Navy, Millar said.

It might also involve the United States Coast Guard and the Danish Coast Guard.

Onshore, Rangers will partner with the 120 soldiers who will spend the operation living in tents on the land, Millar said. "We're going to take our Rangers and attach them to the land force," he said. "The Rangers will show them how to live under canvas, how to cook on the land and fend for themselves and operate on the land."

When asked why Operation Nanook has never taken place in the winter, Millar said the skills learned during the summer can also be used during winter months.

"The high activity rate occurs during the summer, when the ice is gone and the sun is shining," he said.

"It's the same skill sets that we practice that we can use when it is completely pitch black."