Substandard dumps mean Nunavut doesn't take out its trash: report

Smoke from burning garbage was so thick that day that drivers turned on their headlights to see through it. Hunters on the land could smell the reek 15 kilometres out.

"That smoke hung like a blanket over the upper section of town," recalled Ron Mongeau, manager of the Arctic hamlet of Pangnirtung. "Extremely nasty."

That acrid afternoon in July 2007 was an extreme example of what happens every time Nunavut municipalities try to get rid of their garbage. A report tabled this month in the territory's legislature suggests that none of its growing towns and hamlets have safe, secure waste disposal.

"All communities expressed their concern about the impact of the (dump) on the environment," says the report. "An overwhelming majority of the communities voiced their concerns related to health and safety hazards."

Yellowknife-based consultants Arktis Solutions looked at how 14 of Nunavut's 25 communities handle their waste.

Arktis found none of the communities is able to control what goes into landfills because of inadequate fencing. Everything from medical waste to discarded car batteries to entire cars is believed to lie beneath the surface.

All but two of the communities practise open-air garbage burning. In 10 of them, the burns take place even if the wind is blowing smoke towards houses.

None has any way to collect and treat water that seeps through the accumulated waste. Only one community has berms to try to control it, despite the fact half of the studied landfills are built on rolling terrain.

Landfills are located an average of 1.5 kilometres from the nearest homes and those distances are shrinking as population grows.

Mongeau said Pangnirtung recently sent six samples from its dump to the Canadian Public Health Association for analysis.

"They were able to identify between eight and 12 known carcinogens that are being released every time we burn the dump."

The federal government has acknowledged the problem. It recently issued a request for proposals to introduce some form of recycling in the North to reduce pressure on landfills.

"Stockpiles of used goods and materials requiring special attention are growing, and commonly include scrap metal, derelict vehicles, hazardous wastes, white goods, electronics, snow machines and all-terrain vehicles," says the request.

Roy Green of Nunavut's Department of Community and Government Services acknowledges that what Arktis found in the 14 communities is probably true elsewhere in the territory.

"We know that our solid waste sites are more than 25 years old and in most cases they've outlived their useful life," he said. "We recognize there's a big issue."

Solutions for seven communities, including Pangnirtung, are in the works, Green said.

And over the next two to five years, the territory hopes to fence off its landfills to control access and perhaps bring in sea cans for hazardous materials, he said. Nunavut will also offer training to landfill operators and public education for people to encourage them to separate garbage.

But it could take a decade to get proper landfills into every community in Nunavut, Green said.

"If we had to build 25 solid-waste sites, we're looking at anywhere from $320 (million) to $500 million. It's going to take time in order to do that."

Arktis found that properly engineered, adequately fenced landfills would be the most cost-effective solution. Hazardous waste would be separated out and eventually moved south for safe disposal. Regular waste would be crushed and stored, and combustible products would be burned.

Such facilities would cost about $14 million each over 30 years.

The Arktis report echoes another study the company conducted for Environment Canada that found mining waste and other hazardous material ends up in community dumps across the North.

Heavy-duty industrial waste from mines was spotted at community garbage dumps in all three northern territories — as were hazardous household items such as car batteries, paint cans and propane tanks.

Other federally funded research has found loopholes in environmental rules that allow a growing number of unregulated waste incinerators to release extremely toxic chemicals onto the land and into the water at mines and exploration camps in the Arctic.