Kristen Villebrun and Wendy Bush hoped they wouldn't have to pray for Chedoke Creek, but four years after they first raised alarm about the water's condition, they were part of an Indigenous full moon ceremony to do just that. About 50 people showed up near Princess Point on the dark and frigid Monday evening for the monthly ceremony, which was particularly special as it focused on Chedoke Creek. The body of water that runs into Cootes Paradise had about 24 billion litres of sewage and storm water runoff leak into it due to a gate being left open.
The Northwest Territories Power Corporation has been using more than seven times the usual amount of diesel to generate electricity in the North Slave as low water levels impede its hydroelectric dam system. The Snare hydro system is a series of four hydro plants that provide power to Yellowknife, Behchokǫ̀ and Dettah. The system usually generates about 98 per cent of all the electricity needed to power those communities, but this year — it's been a different story.
In a news release on Monday, the city said “at least 20 years” had passed since the rate structure was last fully reviewed. According to the city, a report found that trucked water and sewer fees only cover 75 percent of the cost to the city. City Hall says the best practice would be to charge 90 to 110 percent of the cost. The 190-page report, conducted by utility rate design consultants InterGroup and billed as only an interim version, recommends phasing in new rates over three years, beginning in January 2024.
The City of Yellowknife says the cost of a new underwater pipeline to its municipal water source has risen from $34 million to $57 million in the four years since federal funding was received. The city has almost $26 million in federal cash from a disaster mitigation fund to put toward the pipeline from the Yellowknife River to its treatment facility. Initially, that left the city with $8 million to find. But a fresh assessment of the project puts the bill at $23 million more than was first thought in 2019, before the pandemic and various global supply chain issues. Under its agreement with the federal government, the city has to find all of that extra cash – a total of $31 million once you add the cost increase to the initial $8 million.
The Diavik Diamond Mine in the Northwest Territories says 450 million litres of wastewater spilled due to a broken pipeline. The spill took place on Feb. 7 but wasn't reported to the Northwest Territories government until late last week. The territorial government says pipeline operators did not initially believe it needed to be reported as the wastewater leaked into a containment pond that was its final destination.
The federal government is responsible for more than 20,000 contaminated sites in Canada. Here is a breakdown of the top five most expensive environmental cleanups where taxpayers are footing the bill. In some cases, public cost estimates have not been updated for several years. Giant Mine Estimated to cost $4.38 billion between 2005 and 2038.
Last week, the federal government revealed that cleaning up Yellowknife's Giant Mine is now projected to cost $4.38 billion instead of $1 billion. This is, by one measure, greater than the mine's total estimated revenues during its operation. Quantifying, in dollar terms, the impact of the mine on the local economy, the environment, and the people who live on and use the area's land and water is complicated, if not impossible.
A team working to address environmental and health effects from a former gold mine outside Yellowknife has provided an update on the effort to clean up one of the most contaminated places in Canada. The Giant Mine Remediation Project, co-managed by the Canadian and Northwest Territories governments, is expected to take until 2038 to complete. Arsenic trioxide waste stored underground is anticipated to require perpetual maintenance.
Another major project expected in 2023 is construction of a year-round water treatment plant, which will allow the cleanup team to stop storing water on-site for much of each year, in turn hastening the speed at which the site can be remediated. A lot of the work still to come involves, at least in part, managing water and reducing the risk contamination of that water might pose.
An Indigenous filmmaker is using TikTok to raise awareness about the toxic mess left behind at Giant Mine in Yellowknife, N.W.T., and the health risks it poses to the surrounding community. Morgan Tsetta, a Yellowknives Dene First Nation photographer and filmmaker working in Vancouver, has been posting videos about the mine in an effort to pressure the federal government for an apology and compensation.
Northerners looking to participate in the economic spin offs of the $1-billion Giant Mine remediation project can expect to wait for the water licence before the project's main manager gets specific on potential contracts. The project's deputy director, Natalie Plato, said that the main construction manager, Parsons Inc., gave the board the "most detailed schedule" it could within last six months.
A decades-old pipe that carries Yellowknife's drinking water is going to be replaced in a project funded by the federal and municipal governments. Wednesday's announcement comes more than a year after a consultant's report laid out two options: use a less expensive pipe connecting to a closer water supply or replace the current pipe for nearly $15 million more.
