Dump fire may burn through cash
Estimated cost to extinguish goes from $3.5 million, to $4 million, to $4.5 million
Casey Lessard
Northern News Services
Published Monday, July 14, 2014
IQALUIT
If Iqaluit wants to put out its landfill fire, burning since May 20, the city will have to be prepared to burn a second pile - of money.
The first estimate by landfill fire expert Tony Sperling predicted the cost to put it out would be $3.5 million, he told a working group of representatives of various government agencies June 30.
This map shows where water will be taken from Koojeese Inlet to provide a water supply, and where the garbage will be dunked in a quench pond. The cooled garbage will be put in the laydown position in a multimillion-dollar effort to extinguish the blaze. - graphic courtesy of City of Iqaluit |
By July 4, he told Nunavut News/North that estimate had risen to $4 million. On July 8, Fire Chief Luc Grandmaison told city council the cost would be closer to $4.5 million.
That's assuming Hellfire, the specialists who would work on the fire, can put
it out in 50 days. At $91,853 per day - which includes all costs associated with the firefighters (about $27,000 per day for 14 people from Hellfire and some from
Iqaluit) and the heavy equipment rentals and operators - the city would be on the hook for another $1 million for every 11 days beyond the first 50.
On the flipside, if it's put out 11 days earlier, the city would save $1 million.
"If this number keeps going up, (as it has) every meeting we come to," said chief administrative officer John Hussey, "it's going to become more important that council decide how we're going to find the money for this. If we're going to do it quick, we'd better have a financial plan."
"It is a very costly endeavour," Grandmaison said. "They can start within seven to 14 days, depending on when the equipment can be here."
On top of the cost to put it out, Sperling recommends closing the portion of the landfill where the fire is burning. This process, which includes a six-month fire watch, will cost $1.573 million, bringing the grand total - for now - to more than $6 million.
"It will close the cell down so that the fire doesn't start again," Grandmaison said.
The fire is an environmental disaster sending dioxins and furans - some of the most toxic chemicals known to man - across Koojeese Inlet and Sylvia Grinnell Park, depending on which way the wind blows.
They're persistent pollutants that stick to plants
and soil, accumulate in animal and human fat, and can cause cancer if enough is consumed over time. Putting the fire out will kick out more smoke, and once firefighters start putting the fire out,
they can't stop, even if the smoke is blowing toward town, Sperling told Grandmaison.
One reversal from Sperling is the suggestion that seawater is now fine to use. Actually, Sperling still doesn't think it's a good idea to use saltwater, but he says the city has no choice, Grandmaison said.
Quenching the fire will take more than 13 million gallons of water, with pumps generating more than 1,000 gallons per minute. The only source that can provide that much water that quickly is the bay, he said.
"It's an incredible amount of water," he said. "It would be a waste of treated water, and we can't produce enough water to have it trucked to the scene, so it has to be saltwater. It needs so much water, it must now be saltwater."
The city tentatively had verbal approval from Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada to
use water from the bay to put out the fire, with such permission still to come in writing.
Sperling told Grandmaison the city needs to start shredding tires and crushing recyclables to send south. Cardboard, paper and wood should be burned after collection until a better solution comes up, he said.
"He thinks diversion should start right away, and I think that's what's really urgent," Grandmaison said.
The city produces about 20 tonnes of landfill per day, he said.
When the firefighting starts on site, the smoke
will be too heavy for new waste to be delivered to the current landfill. This is a problem because the city hasn't had a valid water licence for two years, and the city's June 11 request to the Nunavut Water Board for permission to open a temporary landfill at the airport was rebuffed as a result of the city's lack of action to renew it.
"Given the long expired status of the city's water licence," executive director Damien Cote wrote in response June 19, "the board cannot handle this request as a request for a modification or an application for amendment of Licence No. 3AM-IQA0611 because, quite simply, the board cannot amend a licence that, from a legal perspective, no longer grants rights to the licensee."
"We don't have another place to put garbage for 40, 50, 60 days," acting mayor Romeyn Stevenson said. "Forty, 50, 60 days of no garbage removal, no separation of garbage, I don't know what we're going to do with our garbage. I think that has been a major failing of this so far. We need a waste management plan ... if we can't have the landfill open."
During heavy smoke, the city will also have to close the road leading to the dump, cutting off access to the boat launch and to the river.
