SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - A joint venture made up of 50 per cent of the business arm of the Yellowknives Dene First Nation recently celebrated a significant safety milestone.

From left, Yellowknives Dene First Nation chiefs Ed Sangris (Dettah) and Ted Tsetta (Ndilo) celebrate the Deton'Cho/Nuna Joint Venture's accomplishment of having worked five years at Giant Mine without a lost time incident due to injuries with Pat McHale, operations manager for Nuna Logistics. - photo courtesy of the Deton'Cho/Nuna Joint Venture

The Deton'Cho/Nuna Joint Venture recently surpassed five years without a lost time incident due to injuries at Giant Mine.

Since April 2005, the joint venture - a partnership between Nuna Logistics, a 51 per cent Inuit-owned company, and the Yellowknives Dene First Nation - has been under contract to Public Works and Government Services Canada to provide care and maintenance services at the abandoned gold mine.

"We're not just concerned with the environmental protection of our land, but with the safety of our people, too, so this is a major accomplishment," said Chief Ed Sangris of Dettah.

Out of the 31 Deton'Cho/Nuna employees currently on site, 14 are Yellowknives members, added Sangris.

Ongoing activities at the site include site security, de-watering, water treatment and environmental monitoring.

The primary focus of work on site has remained water management, however. In 2008, the joint venture installed a new mine de-watering pumping system - a system that garnered the prestigious 2010 Award of Excellence from the Consulting Engineers of Alberta.

Simply put, current water-related activities on-site involve "keeping the pumps going and treating the water before it goes into the environment," said Mike Borden, mine manager for Deton'Cho/Nuna, of current water management activities.

The fact that no lost time incidents have occurred over the past five years is a testament to the safety training the joint venture employees have received, said Borden.

"There's ongoing health and safety training plans," he said. "I think our site-specific safety manual is quite literally a binder; it's about six to seven inches thick."

The joint venture also recently became certified under the Certificate of Recognition - COR, for short. COR is the highest distinction for contractors to reach when it comes to their health and safety protocol, trademarked and endorsed by participating members of the Canadian Federation of Construction Safety Association.

The joint venture partners are hopeful that the recent safety milestone will give their company a leg up when the contract goes up for bid again in the coming months, said Borden.

"We're hoping so," he said.

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