No more trash smoke over Kuujjuaraapik after dump relocated

Kuujjuaraapik and Whapmagoostui’s landfill has a new home, where smoke from burning waste will no longer cause grief for people living nearby.

This is the location of Kuujjuaraapik’s former landfill. (Map created by Datawrapper)

The former site was about 350 metres away from the nearest housing development. Burn programs done there created smoke that often blew into the community.

But as of Jan. 19, the landfill is five kilometres away at a new site.

When the old dump was first built, distance was not a problem because most of the community lived next to the mouth of the river, about two kilometres from the dump, said Kuujjuaraapik Mayor Raymond Mickpegak.

“Back then, people were living in tents, and the only big building was the old church right across the street,” he said in an interview inside his office at the municipal building.

“Decades later, here we are, from 35 people to close to 2,000 as a whole.”

Mickpegak says moving the landfill has been talked about for a long time but became more urgent over the past 10 years as the community expanded.

The municipality only burned trash when winds were predicted to push smoke away from the community, but forecasts were not always correct and sometimes the smoke blew into town anyway.

“Over the years, it became a concern because we were breathing it daily,” said Mickpegak, adding the elderly and people with asthma can be especially affected.

“It is not healthy regardless of who you are.”

What, if any, health effects may have arisen from the situation have not been studied, said Dr. Amélie Desjardins-Tessier, environmental health adviser to the Nunavik Regional Board of Health and Social Services.

“The data currently available does not allow us to determine the health impacts associated with open burning of waste in the specific context of Nunavik,” she said in an email, adding the health board is taking steps to ensure a rigorous risk assessment is conducted on this issue.

The former landfill site was on Inuit land and remediation will be a municipal responsibility. The new landfill cost $40 million and because it sits on Cree territory, Whapmagoostui foots the bill.

The process to close a dump can last upward of five years with multiple detailed steps to follow, according to Quebec’s Environment Act.

This is where Kuujjuaraapik’s new landfill is located. The landfill opened Jan. 19. (Map created by Datawrapper)