Nunavut regulators ponder hovercraft proposal from Agnico Eagle

Hovercraft, like this one, are widely used in Russia’s Arctic regions. They move by using blowers to produce a large volume of air below the hull. That are is slightly above atmospheric pressure, so this pressure difference produces lift, which causes the hull to float above the running surface. (PHOTO COURTESY OF AGNICO EAGLE)

If you’ve ever seen a hovercraft in action, it was probably shown whipping through the Everglades in Florida.

But Agnico Eagle Mining Ltd. would like to bring two hovercraft to Nunavut’s Kivalliq region this summer for use in a pilot project that is now awaiting an April 17 screening decision from the Nunavut Impact Review Board.

By design, hovercraft can be used on water and land, taking people or industrial loads over small and large rivers, lakes, swamps, snow, soil, packed ice bogs, tundra, and coastal seas throughout the year.

And hovercraft have resolved numerous logistical and transportation problems in Siberia and the Far East, Agnico Eagle said in its project proposal to the NIRB.

“It is expected that they will also be applicable in Nunavut and may have future all-season benefits for Nunavummiut,” Agnico Eagle said.

The mining company, which operates the Meadowbank gold mine in Nunavut, said the hovercraft technology is, “the most cost-effective and best overall alternative for exploration from an environmental and economic perspective.”

But the Kivalliq Inuit Association has said it opposes the hovercraft project because it will add more disturbance to an already intense activity area.

“The Kivalliq Inuit Association do not support this project at all,” the KIA said this past February, in comments to the NIRB.

In its response to the KIA’s comments, Agnico Eagle said the company remains committed to continuing to work with the KIA, and coming to an agreement on the use of hovercraft in the Kivalliq.

The company said hovercraft produce less noise and damage to the land—and, unlike permanent trails and roads, the use of hovercraft would not put additional hunting pressure on caribou, “thus reducing the predicted cumulative impacts on caribou.”

The company said overall, the cumulative effects of the hovercraft “are not assessed as significant.”

Specifically, Agnico Eagle wants to use hovercraft to transport personnel and light cargo on the Amaruq Exploration Access Road near Meadowbank, on the winter roads and designated trails to drilling properties on its Amaruq property on a year-round basis.

The one-year pilot program would start in the summer of 2017 and continue through the winter of 2017/2018 until the end of 2018, to assess the hovercraft’s performance and possible uses for search and rescue activities in the area around Meadowbank.

That was in response to comments made by Environment and Climate Change Canada, Fisheries and Oceans and Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada on the need, among other things, to know how the project would impact wildlife, marine mammals, birds, fish and their habitats, heritage resources, traditional land uses, Inuit harvesting activities, community involvement and consultation and local development.

You can read these comments here.

The NIRB said in a recent letter to INAC Minister Carolyn Bennett that the screening of this project proposal would be completed by April 17, “at which time a screening decision report will be submitted to the responsible Minister(s) for consideration.”