Iqaluit hires firm to send CCTV cameras through sewer lines

Tower Arctic Ltd. will be cleaning sewer lines in Lower Iqaluit and using closed-circuit television cameras to inspect them after city council voted Tuesday evening to award it the contract.

The footage will be used to assess repairs needed to the area’s sewage infrastructure.

Council unanimously opted to follow staff’s recommendation to go with Tower Arctic over the sole competing bidder, Nunavut Excavating, on a motion from Coun. Paul Quassa.

Tower’s bid came in under the $250,000 tender, which went up Aug. 7.

However, the funding will not come from the city, which has no budget for this project. It will come from the federal government’s Climate Change Preparedness in the North program.

The camera inspection work will help the city plan to fix any breaks, leaks or damage that’s detected, according to Tamilore Adeleke, the city’s acting director of engineering and capital projects.

“It will provide us with the information we need to make a guided choice,” Adeleke said.

Mayor Solomon Awa asked whether this contract will cover just the assessment or if it will include the repairs as well.

Adeleke said it will only cover the assessment, but that the city is in the final stages of signing and reviewing a funding agreement with the federal government to get money to repair the sewage infrastructure.

She said the federal government gave verbal approval to go ahead and put out a tender for the repair work.

“I’d say there’s a 100 per cent chance of us getting that funding,” Adeleke said.

The city is focusing on Lower Iqaluit because it is an older part of town and the recent sewage upgrades were not in that neighbourhood.

The city has been discussing money for sewage infrastructure with the Department of Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada.

With sewage infrastructure being closely tied to water infrastructure, it made sense to address both problems simultaneously instead of having to go back and dig twice, Adeleke said.

Work is scheduled to start in September and run through December, according to the city.