IQALUIT - If there is an oil or fuel spill, Devin Aviugana from Repulse Bay and the other students in the environmental technology program at Nunavut Arctic College will be prepared.

Nunavut Arctic College environment technology student Martin Barbe uses a vacuum to suck up dyed vegetable oil from a children's pool. The same technique would be used to clean up an oil spill. In back from left are William Flaherty, Devin Aviugana, Johnny Flaherty and Rob Eno, GN Department of Environment director of environmental protection division. - photo courtesy of the Government of Nunavut Department of Environment

"Just in case a spill occurs and we are one of the people that are there, we have the hands-on training," said the second-year student.

He and 10 other students who will graduate from the program in May 2011 teamed up with staff from the Government of Nunavut's Department of Environment environmental protection division to participate in a spill response course in Iqaluit the week of Sept. 6.

Aviugana said he learned what placards and UN numbers are. He explained that placards will tell a person what the spilled substance could be, such as whether it's radioactive, flammable or gas. The UN numbers are a four digit code identifying the hazardous substances. Examples are 1202, which can be gas, diesel or heating oil or 1203 which is gasoline.

Students attended lectures in the mornings and worked on scenarios in the afternoon.

Fellow student, Craig Beardsall, originally from Coral Harbour, said while he enjoyed the classroom components of the course, he said he got the most out of the scenarios.

He and others learned how to make a culvert weir. Beardsall said if there were a spill running down to a culvert, one would place a piece of plywood, letting the water go under and letting the oil float to the top.

Emphasis was put on showing students how to effectively manage a spill using locally available materials.

They were also shown how to make dams.

Oil and gas are routinely transported on ships to the Arctic, there's more ocean traffic with the thawing of the Northwest Passage and leaking fuel tanks on ships and next to homes and workplaces are a reality.

"People have been talking about just a possibility of a spill happening in the North and what that would cause in frozen waters," said Jason Carpenter, senior instructor for the environmental technology program at Nunavut Arctic College.

Due to the nature of the geography of the territory, Carpenter said our environment lacks natural systems used to break down toxic materials.

Rob Eno, a graduate of the program and now the director of the environmental protection division at the Department of the Environment, has been teaching the course for more than 20 years.

"Some of these students may end up being conservation officers in their careers and often times in communities, the conservation officer is the only individual who has the requisite training," said Eno.

His main message to the students was if they do not know what type of substance they are dealing with, then it should be left alone, as human safety is a priority, Eno said.

Both Aviugana and Beardsall agreed the training they took will come in handy in the future and could help limit damage to the environment.

"It would be pretty simple for a local guy to clean [a spill] up instead of getting someone from down south," he said.

With the expansion of industry in the territory, Eno said while there might not be tanker trucks filled with exotic materials travelling on highways as in the south, the need for knowledge is still there.

"They are already talking about running highways up the coast to the Kivalliq and to Bathurst Inlet -- there is going to be industrial activity in these areas and where you have industrial activity you will have transport of hazardous materials, he said.

"Spill response, I think, needs to be better and I think needs to be quicker here if we want to minimize the damage it does to the environment," said Carpenter.

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