$600 million in contracts for Giant Mine cleanup
Northern companies turn up at information sessions about upcoming remediation contracts at former gold mine
Evan Kiyoshi French
Northern News Services
Wednesday, March 2, 2016
SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
Companies hoping to cash in on more than $600 million in cleanup-related work at Giant Mine begin a pre-qualification process this summer and will make detailed proposals by the fall, according to Rob Turk, procurement manager for the Giant Mine Remediation Project.
Turk said the project - run by the Department of Indigenous and Northern Affairs and the Department of Public Works Canada - took a positive step forward on Thursday, when about 70 people representing around 60 companies attended an information session outlining the kind of work that needs to be done to remediate and care for the contaminated mine site.
"We got lots of good quality questions surrounding our key messages," said Turk.
The remediation team is seeking a company to take on the role of main construction manager. The company chosen will be responsible for posting tenders and delegating work to sub-contractors.
"Because they'll be in that role of tendering and structuring the work packages, they will not be able to bid on that work," said Turk.
"So the firms actually doing the infrastructure work may not want to be part of the main (construction manager) team."
Sharon Nelson, spokesperson for Public Works and Government Services Canada, said Northern companies represented a slight majority of those in attendance.
"Just over half were local," said Nelson.
Giant Mine was a huge economic engine for the city starting in 1948 but contaminants left behind - including 237,000 tonnes of arsenic trioxide stored in underground chambers - became the focus of attention after the mine closed in 2004.
Henry Westerman, project manager for the remediation project, said the clean-up operation will be broken up into packages, and each will include many different types of jobs.
"There's drilling, blasting, environmental monitoring, some mine work," he said. "And the ongoing care and maintenance of the project."
Turk said they'll also need to hire heavy-equipment operators, truck drivers and site security staff.
"The target is to post the first phase of the request for proposals, this coming summer of 2016. And then the second phase would require them to submit more detailed proposals and a financial bid. And that would be about two months later in the fall of 2016," said Turk.
It couldn't be determined by press time when the work is expected to start.
Westerman said he could not speculate as to how many people will ultimately be employed on the project.
"There have been some rough estimates in some of the earlier documents but we don't have anything recent to indicate," he said.
"It's a significant amount of work over a very long duration."
