Sailors more optimistic about potential impact of Giant mine cleanup

The cleanup of Giant Mine will likely have less of an impact on sailors and other boaters in Yellowknife than they initially feared.

The cleanup will require the temporary shutdown of three operations near the Giant Mine townsite — a city owned boat launch, a sailing club and a museum.

"In the last few weeks we've gone from pessimistic to guardedly optimistic," said Ian McCrea, past commodore of the Great Slave Sailing Club. McCrea says that optimism is the result of recent meetings with the territorial government and the federal team overseeing the billion dollar cleanup of Giant Mine.

Prior to those meetings the club submitted a claim for $912,773 in compensation for losses it says it would suffer as a result of the shutdown. In its claim, the club anticipates being shut down for six years.

Individual boat owners have notified of their intention to seek compensation for their boats which, they say, would be rendered worthless if the sailing club is shut down for a long period of time. They say that's the only place in Yellowknife where boats can be craned into the water in the spring and fall and stored on the land in winter.

In another claim, a commercial fisher who bought a $200,000 28-foot fishing boat in August said the Giant Mine boat launch is the only place in Yellowknife a boat that size can be launched. In addition to fishing, Becky Jane Lang and her husband use the boat to collect berries to make jams which she sells at the Yellowknife Farmers' Market.

"A closure of the boat launch would effectively shut down our fishing/berry picking business as we access both from the waters of Great Slave Lake," wrote Lang in support of her claim for lost annual income ranging from $87,250 next year on up to $107,600 in 2021.

Remediation team looking at options

More than a dozen organizations and individuals have filed notices of their intent to claim compensation as a result of the cleanup. The city of Yellowknife has filed a claim for $8.6 million to cover its share of the cost of replacing an old underwater pipeline it uses to draw its drinking water from the Yellowknife River.

But McCrea says the remediation team is looking at a number of options to reduce the impact the cleanup will have on boaters.

"They were able to brief us at the one meeting on their hope to complete the remediation as it affects the club's property where, at the worst, we would lose just one season of sailing."

McCrea said there's also discussions of how a public boat launch could be set up at the club to accommodate motor boaters while the boat launch is shut down.

Because of the new information the clean up team has provided on the timing and duration of closures, on Thursday the sailing club asked the Mackenzie Valley Land and Water Board, which is regulating the cleanup, to extend the deadline for claims from Sept. 26 to Oct. 31.

No one from the remediation team was immediately available for comment.