More than 200,000 litres of waste oil to be removed from 3 hamlets

More than 200,000 litres of waste oil stockpiled over decades sits stored in the hamlets of Arviat, Cambridge Bay and Pond Inlet with nowhere to safely dispose of it.

A new pilot project, however, aims to ship that waste south.

The three communities are part of a waste oil management pilot project led by the Government of Nunavut’s Department of Environment to assess the project’s long-term feasibility.

Environment Minister Joanna Quassa said it’s long been needed.

Because no processing facilities exist in Nunavut for substances like used oil and old car batteries, every community has been collecting the waste “since they first became communities,” she said.

“That is why the amount of waste oil that is being shipped out is kind of massive.”

An estimated 51,000 litres of waste is stored in Pond Inlet, which includes 60 portable tote tanks in varying sizes and roughly oil 250 drums; 64,000 litres of waste sits in Arviat, with 20 tote tanks and 187 drums; and 91,000 litres with 46 tote tanks and 225 drums are in Cambridge Bay, Quassa said.

Hundreds of barrels of used oil in Arviat are packaged and prepared to be shipped south and safely disposed of during the 2023 sealift season, Environment Minister Joanna Quassa said. Arviat is one of three hamlets, along with Cambridge Bay and Pond Inlet, that is part of a new waste oil management project with the GN. (Photos courtesy of the Department of Environment)

Community members are concerned about the safety of the landfill sites and their effect on the environment.

“In small communities, sometimes children go up to the dumps and if they’re not aware of these things, they could very well be touching all that stuff and possibly get sick from them,” Quassa said.

Ground contamination is another concern — in winter, frozen oil barrels can break and oil can seep into the ground.

“There really is no place for the hamlets to put them other than the dump site. So they’ve been collecting over the years that they have them, and the municipalities [don’t have] enough funds to send all this stuff out on their own either,” Quassa said.

The pilot project will cost roughly $265,000 per community to implement — around $130,000 to have the waste packaged and another $135,000 to ship it south, where it will be disposed of in facilities designed to handle hazardous materials.

Most of the waste will be shipped during the upcoming 2023 sealift season, although some may be shipped next year, Quassa said.

Budget constraints mean the Environment Department can only roll out the project in three hamlets this year, but the GN hopes to expand the project if it goes well.

There are also hopes to train municipal employees to safely package and ship the waste on their own, the minister said.

“If a lot of the waste oil is taken from that community, it shouldn’t be that costly for the municipalities to ship them out in sooner time, rather than just having them build up within their dump area,” Quassa said.

“So this would definitely get them started dealing with these things on their own.”