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SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
The Mackenzie Valley Environmental Impact Review Board rejected the city's request to replace a $10-million potable water pipeline last week.

Director of public works and engineering Dennis Kefalas had written a letter in January requesting the feds pay for the underwater pipeline as part of an environmental assessment (EA) of the Giant Mine Remediation Plan.

The line runs between Pumphouse No. 1 on 48 Street and Pumphouse No. 2 at the Yellowknife River and is a major piece of ongoing efforts to upgrade the city's water treatment plant.

The city plans to start construction on the main structure of the plant this summer, with commissioning to begin in 2013, according to Kefalas.

On Feb. 20 the city received the review board's response from executive director Vern Christensen saying that because the water line was not part of the planned assessment, the review board would not fund it.

"The replacement of the water line is not part of the proposed project," Christensen stated in the letter.

"Accordingly, it is the opinion of the review board that the replacement of the water line should not be included in the EA of the Giant Mine Remediation project."

Christensen draws his reasoning in the letter from review board guidelines which state that the clean-up project does not depend on a new pipeline, that the two projects are not linked, and that the two projects are not in a close proximity.

The letter also notes that the board is aware that replacing the pipe would help alleviate fears from the public of risks to the water supply, but that the city's choice in previous years to draw water from the Yellowknife River took place long before the Giant Mine Remediation Project began.

However the city continues to make the case that because the eight-kilometre pipeline was installed by the federal government in 1969 as a safety concern out of a public fear of arsenic contamination, the line is therefore a federal asset and should be paid for by that government.

The city contends that the pipeline has about eight years left in its useful lifespan and will have to be replaced.

Mayor Gord Van Tighem said the city will continue to look for ways of appealing the decision or finding other avenues to cover the expenses, because it is simply too much for the community to pay for. He said the next step will probably be to go to the remediation project team for assistance.

"We will probably appeal (this decision) because the pipe was put into the ground by the federal government in 1969 at the request of the national Department of Health. So it is a federal asset and was put in by the federal government for a specific purpose."

Kefalas echoed the same position to councillors during Monday's meeting.

"It wasn't our choice, it was the federal government's choice to address the issue of arsenic in the water," he said.

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