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Bidding adieu to DEW Line waste National Defence awards Qikiqtaaluk Environmental $14.7-million disposal contractCasey Lessard Northern News Services Published Monday, April 23, 2012
The firm will remove 14.4 million kilograms of hazardous materials from nine sites across Nunavut and only two sites still require clean-up, according to Dave Eagles, DND's project manager for the DEW Line clean-up project. "At the nine sites where there's material, it's sitting somewhere near a place where it can be shipped, and the site's cleaned up," said Dave Eagles, DND's project manager for the DEW Line clean-up project. "It's just sitting there waiting to be shipped." "Our job is to go in there and remove the containers," Qikiqtaaluk Corporation president Harry Flaherty said, noting the project will create work for 130 Nunavummiut for terms of five to 60 days in 2012 and 2013, with the disposal work creating between five and 10 jobs. The containers that are awaiting shipment will be sent by boat to Montreal, where they will be forwarded by tractor-trailer to specialized disposal sites in Quebec and Ontario. "You've got soils that are coming off and you've got structural components from the buildings," said Don Beattie, DND's associate project manager. "The soils (are) leachable lead soils as well as PCB-contaminated soils. The building components were components that were deemed contaminated with PCBs over 50 parts per million." Asbestos-contaminated materials will only be taken south if they are co-contaminated with PCBs (chemicals with neurotoxic effects), Beattie said. Doors that contain asbestos cores and that are painted with paints containing PCBs will be removed, for example. Remaining materials will be sent to a designated landfill near each site. "The amount of contaminants removed from Nunavut will make a difference in the long-term," Flaherty said. In town to make the announcement on behalf of National Defence Minister Peter MacKay was Leona Aglukkaq, federal minister of health and of the Canadian Northern Economic Development Agency. "The work accomplished thus far has gone a long way toward removing the footprints that were left on the land by the past military operations," said Aglukkaq. "Today's announcement is rooted in our respect for Northern communities, and is focused on the health of our land, as well as supporting the people who call it their home." "It's very comforting to know it's nearing completion," said Kitikmeot Inuit Association president Charlie Evalik. "All the hazardous materials have been containerized at each site, and those will be shipped out to proper disposal areas. It will be comforting to the communities." The process will have brought more than $575 million of federal funds to the territory - in contracts Nunavut-based companies have had the opportunity to win - by the time the DND's 15 DEW Line sites in Nunavut are cleaned up, she said. The department also has four sites in NWT and two in the Yukon. The DEW Line, considered the first line of defence during the Cold War in the case of a Russian attack over the North Pole, was established in the late 1950s along the Arctic coastline - roughly along the 69th parallel - from north-western Alaska to Iceland. Twenty-one sites were decommissioned in the 1960s and taken over by Aboriginal Affairs, while the other 21 continued to be used by DND until 1993. The Department of National Defence's cleanup of the DEW Line sites under its control started in 1989. Although the cleanup is set to end next year, the sites will be monitored until 2038, according to the department.
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