Resolute Bay oil spill cleaned up: Nunavut minister

The valve centre at Resolute Bay’s fuel tank farm is shown the night of Oct. 27, 2011 when the valves of tank 104 were left open overnight. The spill has since been cleaned up, Lorne Kusugak, minister of community and government services said March 6. (FILE PHOTO)

A big oil spill of up to 100,000 litres at Resolute Bay’s community tank farm in October 2011 has been cleaned up, Lorne Kusugak, the minister of Community and Government Services, said March 6 in the legislative assembly.

Kusugak also told Quttiktuq MLA Ron Elliott that the final report on the spill has been delivered to his department.

But Elliott wanted to know if Kusugak is ready to release a copy of the final report into the incident.

Elliott said that when the spill occurred, the RCMP were called in to investigate the possibility that fuel may have been stolen or that the incident was caused deliberately.

Nunavut RCMP said the leak at the Resolute Bay tank farm was likely a deliberate act, and that it looked like someone had opened the valves.

Elliott wanted to know if the RCMP’s findings had been shared with Kusugak’s department.

Kusugak said his officials have received the final draft of the report, and were currently going over it.

But he said he didn’t know if the RCMP report would be contained in the final report or if it is “part and parcel” of it at this point.

Elliott said that at the time of the spill, his constituents in Resolute Bay were also worried about the risk of environmental contamination to the surrounding land and water.

He asked if Kusugak what the final assessment of damage from the spill was.

“I believe some of that will be in the final report, but what I could say is that all of the contaminated soil has been collected and put into a contaminated soil area,” Kusugak said.