Izok not needed for Kitikmeot road-port, backers say

Backers of the Bathurst Inlet Road and Port Project now say that the huge Izok Lake zinc-copper deposit never was an essential, make-or-break ingredient of their plan.

Last week, the Canadian Arctic Resources Committee said the road-port system, which would overlap the calving grounds of the Bathurst caribou herd, may not be economically viable without a connection to Izok Lake — which is owned by the Inmet Mining Corp.

CARC says the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs should reconsider its support for the project, and that any environmental review should be postponed until “the project is clarified and its viability proven.”

In December, road-port proponents told regulators that they’ve changed their plans, dropping an 80-km section of all-weather road between the Lupin mine and Izok Lake.

That reduces the scheme to a single, 210-km stretch of all-weather road connecting a port on Bathurst Inlet with the eastern shore of Contwoyto Lake.

But proponents insist that, not only does their plan still make sense without Izok Lake as a centrepiece, it’s still an essential step in the economic development of the Kitikmeot.

“It’s obviously not necessary for them [Inmet Mining] to be the anchor tenant,” said Charlie Lyall, the head of the Kitikmeot Corp., the Kitikmeot region’s Inuit birthright company.

Ian Pirie, Inmet’s director of corporate development, said his firm had no influence on the decision to cut the Izok Lake all-weather road connection from the first phase of the Bathurst road-port project.

He said the company has no problem with the move, and will continue to support the scheme.

Pirie said that world zinc prices are too low for Inmet to consider development of Izok Lake. “If you were to develop it on today’s price, it would not be viable,” Pirie said.

He said the Izok Lake project also needs a transportation system, and that the company wants to wait until it’s clear that the project will actually happen.

But he stressed neither Inmet nor the mining industry initiated the idea.

“Charlie Lyall and the Kitikmeot Corp. and Nuna Logistics, they came to us,” Pirie said.

Lyall, whose firm, along with Nuna Logistics, has been working on the Bathurst project since 1999, said their purpose was always to find a better way of supplying fuel to Kitikmeot communities, to the Ekati and Diavik diamond mines in the NWT, and to four other proposed mines in the region.

“I think what needs to be understood is that this is an economic development tool for us,” Lyall said.

Lyall accused CARC of being ignorant of Nunavut’s social and economic realities, comparing the lobby group to other environmental groups whose activism in the past nearly destroyed world fur markets.

“None of these guys has ever set foot up here, ever lived up here. They never have to go and console the parents of a kid who’s just committed suicide…. They never have to do any of these things, and yet they sit back in these very posh offices in Ottawa and Yellowknife and criticize the hell out of us. Let them come up here and live up here and experience what we’re experiencing,” Lyall said.

The Inuit of the Kitikmeot are also worried about the environment, Lyall stressed, but they support the project because it offers an economic future for their children.

“Of course, there’s concern about the environment. We’re just as concerned,” Lyall said.

But CARC and a variety of other groups disagree with Lyall and other Kitikmeot leaders over the type or environmental review that the project should receive.

CARC, the Government of the Northwest Territories, and a group representing the tiny community of Bathurst Inlet favour a full-blown environmental assessment conducted by the federal government.

Know as a “Part 6” review, such a process would have a wide scope and provide funding to interveners.

But project proponents favour what’s called a “Part 5” review conducted by the Nunavut Impact Review Board, a public government body created by the Nunavut land claims agreement.

A NIRB-run review wouldn’t provide any intervener funding, and would be more limited in scope.

“The thing that worries me with a Part 6 is every little save-the-cockroach society of Saguenay will be able to get funding to come and intervene. It’s not going to help the cause — it’s going to delay the cause,” Lyall said.

Indian Affairs Minister Bob Nault has yet to announce what kind of environmental review will be applied to the project. The issue has been sitting on his desk since July 8, 2002.

It’s only after an environmental review that proponents can apply for the necessary permits and seek financing to pay for the project.