Ottawa awards DEW line clean-up contracts

Two Nunavut companies and a third from Quebec have been awarded four contracts worth $31.8 million to build camps and clean up two contaminated former DEW line sites. Qikiqtaaluk Corp. was awarded camp construction and remediation contracts for the Fox-C sites.

The contracts are worth more than $16 million. A second Inuit firm, Mikim Contracting Ltd., was awarded a $4.5 million camp construction contract to clean up CAM-F, while Biogenie SRDC Inc. of Quebec got a $10.4 million remediation contract for the site. A DIAND press release says bidders were evaluated on the amount of Inuit employment guaranteed. Qikiqtaaluk Corp. says they will maintain an 88 per cent level of Inuit employment and Biogenie a 63 per cent level.

The main contaminant at both sites is PCBs in building paints. FOX-C is on the east coast of Baffin Island, about 240 kilometres northwest of Qikiqtarjuaq. CAM-F is on the Melville Peninsula between Foxe Basin and Committee Bay. The contracts were awarded by the federal public works department behalf of DIAND.