Contamination spotlighted
Soil sampling conducted in Lower Base of Iqaluit
Jessica Davey-Quantick
Northern News Services
Monday, September 5, 2016
IQALUIT
A potentially toxic treasure hunt is underway in Iqaluit. The Department of Environment collected soil and water samples in the Lower Base area of Iqaluit from Aug. 16 to 23 to check for historical contamination.
The findings won't be available for several months, but residents were warned to watch out for 1.5-metre to two-metre deep holes in the area around Baffin Gas and Four Corners, all the way down to the beach.
"If you see an open hole, it's probably best to keep your kids away from it. Other than that this, it shouldn't affect anyone's day-to-day life," said David Oberg, environmental liabilities project manager with the Department of Environment.
But if anything is discovered in those holes, it might. The historic contamination Oberg says dates back to the period when first the American and then the Canadian military operated out of what was then known as Frobisher Bay.
"That neighbourhood was the place of the U.S. air force base I believe it was, a U.S. installation from back in the day when they were operating the runway up here. And with them storing a lot of contaminants, back then it was just set on the ground. So we're trying to see what is still there, if anything," said Oberg. "For historical contamination we're saying stuff that you wouldn't see from coming across on a day-to-day basis.
"Historical contamination could be anything from buried waste, and waste could be small to larger items, and then if any of that waste has fuel or any liquids in it, that could also be a waste that could leach out."
Contamination from the same period led to what's been called the largest clean-up in Canadian history, when the Department of National Defence completed the DEW Line remediation project in 2014. Dating from the early 1950s, the same timeframe as the military in Iqaluit, the DEW Line cost around $575 million to clean up, and included soil contaminated with oil, hydrocarbons, poly-chlorinated biphenyls and heavy metals like lead.
But while Iqaluit was the hub for the DEW Line, and there are several sites around the city containing metal, debris and other waste left behind by the American military, it wasn't considered a DEW Line site, and so wasn't on the list for federal cleanup.
Instead, last week's sampling is part of an ongoing program by the territorial government.
At press time, Oberg said they hadn't found anything to raise eyebrows in Iqaluit.
"We found a few spots that we haven't found much debris. We found some discoloured soil but I can't say whether that's contamination or not. We've been digging the holes, we take our samples, and right now they're just sitting in coolers waiting to be shipped south for analysis," he said.
"We're needing to go back in and see what contamination there is and where it is, which is why we're doing the entire neighbourhood. It's kind of hard to see if we went only to a corner or a few houses, if that's historical contamination. So by doing the entire neighbourhood and comparing those results with one another we can see the overall picture."
He said, depending on the hole, they might take samples from the surface, halfway down and at the bottom, to delineate where there are contaminants.
Afterward, the holes are filled in and the results are sent south to be analyzed. Results will be available in the spring, and that will determine what - if anything - happens next.
"It would depend on how the contamination is found. If there's no risk to the environment or there's no risk to human health, it might not necessarily be cleaned up. It would all depend on what we find, how deep it is, and it's relation to health hazards," said Oberg.
