Inuvialuit cleaning up DEW line sites

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Canada's north is now a little cleaner. The environmental reclamation of a Defense Early Warning Line site at Horton River, between the Tuktoyaktuk and Paulatuk on the Arctic Ocean, will wind down this month.

The clean-up project was awarded to the Inuvialuit Development Corporation at Inuvik, N.W.T. The corporation received more than $1 million from Indian and Northern Affairs for the environmental service.

There are approximately 40 DEW Line sites that dot the remote regions of northern Canada and Alaska. While originally devised as protection against Russian interlopers during the Cold War, they've become obsolete since the chill was taken off relations between North America and Communist Russia.

The work at Horton River included the disposal of buildings and the removal of PCB's, asbestos, heavy metals, petroleum, oil and lubricants from the 400-hectare site, said David Connelly, president and chief executive officer of IDC.

Abandoned oil drums, approximately 5,000 that have been strewn about by Arctic winds, were collected from an area 10 times that size, he said. IDC also had to stabilize the land-fill sites.

In the 1950s, people were not as conscious as they are today of the effects of refuse on the environments, said Connelly. Some thought just pushing garbage over the side of a cliff and covering it with gravel was sufficient and effective waste management.

To stabilize the land-fill means workers had to level off and reinforce the site, plus do appropriate tests to ensure materials aren't leaching into the eco-system.

The contaminants from the DEW Line site are beginning to affect the food chain, said Connelly, although he added no one should be alarmed. They initially affect plant-life, and while absorbed only in small amounts, are bio-magnified each time they move up the food chain.

If a lemming eats a contaminated plant, the contaminent is magnified 10 times in the lemming. Then if the contaminated lemming is eaten by a fox, the contaminant is magnified another 10 times in the fox, and so on, said Connelly.

The clean-up includes ridding the environment of the contaminated soil and plants, so this bio-magnification can't continue.

The contract will train and employ more than 30 Northerners, many of them Inuvialuit. The work is being carried out by 10 subcontractors from Paulatuk, Tuktoyaktuk, Inuvik and Alkavik.

It is IDC's plan to develop expertise in cold temperature environmental work and export that knowledge to other circumpolar communities, said Connelly.

"The withdrawal of spending in the DEW Line, North Warning System, and oil and gas exploration in the Western Arctic require IDC to develop new business opportunities," said Dennie Lennie, IDC chairman.