DEW line sites leaking contaminants

JOHN THOMPSON

In the end, the enemy came from within.

The Distant Early Warning line stands abandoned today, a string of radar sites built from Alaska to eastern Baffin Island during the early 1950s for fear of the Communist menace flying over the North Pole.

Decades after these cold war relics were built and fear of the Red threat receded, the military detected a new enemy: contaminants ranging from petroleum to PCBs, seeping from abandoned equipment at these sites and into the tundra.

Damage from site to site varies. Half of the 42 radar stations were shut down in the early 1960s and taken over by the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs. The other sites remained active until 1993, operated by the Department of National Defence. At that point a new radar line, the North Warning System, replaced them.

An extra three decades of operation for DND’s sites meant that many more years of spilled petroleum, decaying equipment containing heavy metals, and leaking transformer oil that contains PCBs, which accumulate to toxic levels inside the fatty tissues of marine mammals. That means the sites maintained by DND were often the worst of the bunch.

Like doctors in an emergency room sorting through patients, DND tackled the worst cases first. In some cases PCBs had spilled on to beaches and into the ocean.

Fifteen of the military’s 21 sites are found in Nunavut. Four have been cleaned up. By the end of a busy season this fall, another two — Lady Franklin Point and Gladman Point, both found in the Kitikmeot — will be complete. Work is underway at another five sites, like CAM-3 at Shepard Bay, where cleanup began this summer. The total cost of work this season is about $30 million.

Cleanup efforts began after an agreement was reached with Nunavut Tunngavik Inc. in Sept. 1998. Firms like Kudlik and Kitnuna do much of the work, meeting Inuit employment targets of about 70 per cent, said project manager Col. Daniel Paquet.

The Canadian military aims to have cleaned up all 21 sites by 2012. Several years ago an internal report suggested DND might not have enough money to reach these long-term targets. But since then, the federal government boosted funding by an additional $200-odd million, Paquet said. DND’s DEW line budget now totals $583 million. Currently the projects are on time and under budget.

“Things are going very well right now. So far, so good.”

The cleanup process usually takes between three to six years.

Heavy equipment and trailers are moved on site during the first summer to prepare for the work ahead. Old buildings containing asbestos are often demolished during the second season and abandoned airfields are dug up.

Then, during the final stages, contractors turn their attention to packing up waste, like abandoned fuel barrels littered across the sites, and digging up contaminated soil.

The worst contaminated soil is packed up and shipped south for incineration. Contractors bury the less contaminated soil in landfills that are later capped.

Regular monitoring will continue for five years after all cleanups are complete. Afterwards, the military will continue to check up on the stations for the next 25 years.