Federal regulators ponder Brevoort fuel spill

Updated Aug. 9, 11:25 a.m.

Federal regulators are investigating a fuel spill at the North Warning System radar site on Brevoort Island, off the east coast of Baffin Island.

A spokesperson for Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development said the spill was called into a hotline July 28 by crews working for Nasittuq Corporation who were at the site performing regular maintenance.

Denise Antle said workers found jet fuel leaking from a tank farm near the beach. A report from the contractor said about 14,000 litres of jet fuel leaked onto the ground and into the water.

“The spill has been stopped, so it (jet fuel) is not continuing to go into the environment,” Antle said.

“The contractor managing the site has taken immediate steps to control the spill, and to address immediate threats to the environment.”

Robert Champagne, the senior maintenance manager for Nasittuq Corporation, said the leak occurred when crews were pumping water out of a berm surrounding the tank farm.

The tanks are surrounded by a liner and a wall of gravel, and the resulting basin fills up with melted snow every summer.

Champagne said a pipe running into the tank was cracked. Because the tank was nearly empty of fuel and the water level was higher than the fuel, water leaked into the tank at first.

But when crews started pumping water over the berm, the pressure reversed, sending jet fuel into the environment.

Four thousand litres of fuel spilled onto the ground while another 10,000 litres made it to the sea, Champagne said.

He said the fuel that leaked onto the ground has been contained, but the fuel that spilled into the water is gone, because conditions were too rough to place booms that could have contained the spill.

“There were 20-foot swells and it was pouring rain when it happened.”

Antle said federal inspectors travelled to Brevoort Island between July 31 and Aug. 1 to investigate the spill. They’re still trying to determine a cause and decide whether to lay charges under the various pieces of legislation governing pollution in Nunavut.

Champagne said the tank that leaked dates back to the late 1980s. Nasittuq inspects the tank every five years instead of the legally-mandated 10 years, he said, and the last inspection was done in 2008.

The leaky pipe has been removed and the tank welded shut, he added.

“In a way we were fortunate in our misfortune,” Champagne said, because crews from Nasittuq and engineering firm Stantec, which specializes in environmental cleanups, were on site when the spill happened.

Nasittuq is the creation of a joint venture between the business arms of Canada’s four Inuit land claim organizations and ATCO Structures and Logisitics. It has offices in Ottawa and North Bay, Ontario.

This summer’s spill isn’t the first to sully the land on Brevoort Island.

In 2007, more than 150,000 litres of jet fuel spilled into the environment on Brevoort, making that year one of the worst for oil spills since Nunavut was created. That spill was caused by a broken fuel line.