Historical spill exposed by shoreline erosion cleaned up in Tuktoyaktuk, N.W.T.
CBC
The Government of the Northwest Territories has cleaned up an old diesel spill in Tuktoyaktuk, by sending over 500 tonnes of hydrocarbon-contaminated soil away for treatment.
The territory said that the contaminated soil became exposed after erosion and storm surges disrupted the coastal area.
Though the department of Environment and Natural Resources (ENR) said the source of the spill remains unknown, the hamlet's SAO said that as Tuktoyaktuk's shorelines continue to erode, she expects more contaminated soil to become exposed.
"Anytime permafrost is collapsing and shorelines are collapsing and riverbanks are collapsing, you're going to expose all these contaminants," Tuktoyaktuk SAO Lucy Kuptana said.
"It's gonna happen more and more"
After a Tuktoyaktuk resident reported smelling fuel on the beach in August 2022, ENR inspected the site and engaged the department of Municipal and Community Affairs, which then began the process of assessment and clean-up.
ENR's spill report describes the site as being "near the Arctic Ocean coastline where the tourists park."
ENR said that the territory has spent $79,000 to remove the contaminated soil, stabilize the site to protect existing permafrost and ship the containers of contaminated soil from Tuktoyaktuk to Inuvik. There the materials will go to soil treatment facility KBL Environment Ltd.
An operations manager from the transportation company, E. Gruben's Transport Ltd., said the containers of contaminated soil are still in Tuktoyaktuk and will be hauled to Inuvik in the spring.
Sammy Gruben Jr. is a Tuktoyaktuk resident that lives across the street from the site.
"When they were cleaning it up, as soon as you walked out our door you could really smell that oil fuel," he said.
Gruben suspects the spill has to do with the hamlet's maintenance garage which is located by the spill site. He said he thinks the garage had a leaky tank and said he's not surprised that erosion exposed the fuel.
"It's eroding really bad there," he said of the beach area.
Kuptana acknowledged the spill could be from the hamlet's garage, or from a former power plant that she said used to sit on the site.
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