Gjoa Haven residents concerned over alleged contaminated soil near homes
Hamlet says contaminated soil, rubble from a 2022 fire is to be sea lifted out this week
A pile of soil and debris sits near Gjoa Haven resident Kyle Aglukkaq’s home on Sept. 8. The hamlet says it is aware of concerns that the material could be from the contaminated rubble of a 2022 fire. (Photo by Kyle Aglukkaq)
A pile of dark, wet-looking soil and debris that appeared in Kyle Aglukkaq’s neighbourhood in Gjoa Haven for less than 24 hours this week immediately raised concerns.
“[It] reeked of diesel and clearly showed signs of debris,” Aglukkaq wrote over Facebook Messenger Wednesday. “So many kids play around here [and] the smell will travel into our homes and linger.”
It showed up Tuesday and was gone by Wednesday morning.
The property on which the mound of soil was placed belongs to Gjoa Haven-based contractor CAP Enterprises Ltd. Owner Charlie Cahill says that, to fill a swale that forms each year near the road, he brought in excess sand and gravel from another site near the property and from a parking lot the business is building in town.
He told Nunatsiaq News the diesel smell could be due to the parking lot material or due to diesel being trapped in the permafrost beneath the swale, into which his workers dug.
“I think the issue has been overblown,” he said.
Jennifer Wakegijig, Gjoa Haven’s chief administrative officer, wrote in an email that the hamlet has received complaints that allege the material could be from the remnants of a telecommunications building that was destroyed by fire in 2022.
The building housed the hamlet’s main fibre connection, workstations, data centre, servers and hosting services, such as telephone and video conferencing. The Government of Nunavut also used it on a lease-to-own agreement with NCC Properties Ltd., a subsidiary of NCC Investment Group Ltd., which also owns NCC Development Ltd.
The hamlet had allowed NCC to store the rubble near the community’s power plant in the centre of town, Wakegijig said. The company was supposed to remove the material on a sealift in 2024, but it has remained in the community.
“When it was still there in the winter of 2024, the hamlet had requested with each successive sealift, every few months, that the unsightly pile of rubble be removed,” Wakegijig said.
The company did not respond to Nunatsiaq News’ requests for comment before publication. Wakegijig said NCC Development Ltd. told the hamlet that it will investigate why the materials haven’t been removed and that it plans to remove the material this week.
Although Cahill said the material he used on the CAP Enterprises property is not from the destroyed NCC building, the hamlet said it will inform the Department of Environment of the situation so it can investigate.
What fuel tank stand in Gjoa Haven doesn’t smell of diesel
Seems like the Hamlet officials don’t know the actual details. The Burnt building was a Government of Nunavut office building that burnt in 2022… Also the contaminated sand has nothing to do with the burnt building debris, it is existing from the prior fuel tank farm located on the lot where the burnt rubble was authorized to be stored by hamlet in 2022. Get the facts straight before publishing.
To clarify, NCC owned the building that burned, the Gn was leasing office space from NCC.
Also, was the cause of this fire ever determined? Or is it another unsolved fire? That building was a constant target for vandals, half the windows would be broken out and boarded up any given time.
If this wasnt from the burn site, why was CAP emptying and refilling seacans with the fencing contractor’s equipment when sealift showed up?. Where the cans too heavy to lift? Something stinky is happening here and its not just the contaminated debris.
Why doesn’t Gjoa Haven have a land farm where this material can be deposited into so it can degrade over time?
It is surprising that the solution being sought here is to sealift the material out instead of handling and containing this material locally.
The GNWT operates the joint NWT/Nunavut Spill line on behalf of both territories. It’s online spill database is searchable by community. A search for Gjoa Haven reveals this community experiences on average 2-5 reportable fuel spills a year. Like any northern middle sized community, enough spills do occur there to warrant such a facility.
Many recent spills in Gjoa Haven are of an unknown quantity of product, which is concerning. GN Environment should be working immediately with whomever spilled what to determine this basic information. This is basic and obviously critical in responding to and cleaning up a spill.
That spills going back 5 years in Gjoa Haven are still of an unknown quantity points to serious GN neglect in administering it’s Nunavut Environmental Protection Act in this community.
Strangely still, there are no spill of anything reported in Gjoa Haven in 2025. It is highly unlikely any northern community experienced zero spills of anything over an entire year. This is highly suggestive of local organizations and agencies simply forgetting or not knowing they have to report spills. It also points to a GN so divorced from Gjoa Haven’s reality they do not direct people who have spilled something to report it.
Someone needs to help this community protect the local environment. Based on all the crisis management this community has had to deal with this year, it is clear the paper pushers in Iqaluit think this community is on the far side of the moon.
Many of NU’s smaller municipalities have a single contractor that does essentially everything in the town from all the civil work to airport handling to fuel delivery to snow removal, etc.
Spills cost money, sometimes significant money. When you’re the only game in town, it’s easy enough to just make that soil disappear and just quickly smooth it over and play ignorance. I very much don’t think its a matter of forgetting or not knowing.
Enforcement and inspection, well that’s another matter. That means someone has to go out and do work, auger test holes, send samples, do paperwork. Good luck getting that out of DoE or Wildlife.