Study underway on Whale Cove contaminated site

Nunavut’s Department of Environment is assessing a contaminated site in Whale Cove for any risks it may pose to human and ecological health.

The affected area is over 18,000 cubic metres around an old power plant at the centre of town.

“I am concerned about this site. It is in the core area. Whale Cove does have a downtown core and it is in the downtown core,” John Main, MLA for Arviat North-Whale Cove, said on Oct. 29, during the recent sitting of the legislature.

“There are houses in that area. There are workplaces. There is a community freezer. To complicate matters, on a seasonal basis the entire area floods, so water goes in different directions.”

Main questioned Environment Minister Joe Savikataaq about the study of the site and plans for cleanup.

This past summer, Savikataaq said, the site was assessed and a report from that assessment will be completed by February 2020.

As part of the assessment, eight boreholes were drilled into the site for water testing and to take soil samples. The soil will be tested for hydrocarbons, including benzene, toluene, ethyl benzene and xylene. These are commonly known as BTEX chemicals, used in petroleum processing and have known negative effects on human health, depending on the nature of the exposure.

“Once we get the results back of the levels of these chemicals that are there, we will have a better understanding of the health hazards for this contaminated lot,” Savikataaq said.

Qulliq Energy Corp. has done its own environmental site assessments in Whale Cove and other communities where recent or historical contamination could be a concern.

In its 2015-16 annual report, QEC says that it has looked at sites in Chesterfield Inlet, Whale Cove and Naujaat. Environmental site assessments were initially done here in the late 1990s and early 2000s, according to the report.

“The recent ESA performed in Whale Cove showed limited movement of contamination and was consistent with the previous ESA,” the report states. The volume of contamination at the other sites had reduced, however, possibly due to natural attenuation, it says.

Once the Department of Environment’s report is in, the question of who is responsible for cleaning up the site is a bit more complicated.

The source of the contamination in Whale Cove was a diesel spill on the site previously operated by Northern Canada Power Corporation. This was the predecessor to the Northwest Territories Power Corporation, which was the utility before Nunavut’s creation and is still the power provider for most of the Northwest Territories.

The old NCPC site in Whale Cove was inherited by the Government of the Northwest Territories and then the Government of Nunavut after its creation in 1999.

While QEC, established in 2001 as the Nunavut Power Corporation, took over the assets of NTPC in Nunavut, this only included the current operating power plant site in Whale Cove, not this older property. (This, however, was only realized after QEC assessed the contaminated site in 2015.)

So, who pays for the cleanup?

“We are aware that the Department of Environment will not pay for the remediation of the site, but they have stated that it needs to be remediated,” Savikataaq said in response to Main.

“There will be collaboration on who will clean it up and who will pay for it.”

The parties involved in identifying who will foot the bill for the cleanup, he said, will be the departments of Environment, Community and Government Services, Finance and Justice, and QEC.

“Those departments would identify who is going to pay for the cleanup of the land,” Savikataaq said.