July 28, 2011

Ottawa announces funding for environmental assessment for Inuvik-Tuktoyaktuk road construction

The Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency (CEAA) has allocated $54,420 to two groups participating in the environmental assessment of a proposed highway in the Northwest Territories that would link Inuvik and Tuktoyaktuk.

In the 2011 budget, the federal government promised to contribute $150 million towards a 140-kilometre all-season road between Inuvik and Tuktoyaktuk, which is intended to extend the Dempster Highway to the Arctic coast. Currently the only transportation available is by air, water for seasonal ice road. Both communities are more than 2,000 kilometres north of Vancouver by straight line (or more than 3,500 kilometres by road). The Town of Inuvik, with a population of about 3,500, is in the delta of the MacKenzie River east of the Yukon Territory border. The Hamlet of Tuktoyaktuk is on the Arctic shore to the northeast. It has a population of about 1,000, the majority of whom are Inuvialuit

The organizations receiving federal funding to participate in the environmental review process are the Joint Secretariat – Inuvialuit Settlement Region (on behalf of the Tuktoyaktuk-Inuvik Highway Working Group) and the Inuvialuit Regional Corporation.

In September, 2010, the CEAA referred the Inuvik to Tuktoyaktuk Highway Project to an environmental assessment by a review panel. This process was later replaced by the process of the Inuvialuit Environmental Impact Review Board.

Construction of the highway requires permission from the Northwest Territories Water Board, Fisheries and Oceans Canada and Transport Canada. It would also require land use permits from from Indian and Northern Affairs Canada

The proposed highway would be a two-lane, gravel-topped roadway operated by the Northwest Territories Department of Transportation. It would be built in a zone of continuous permafrost and would not involve excavation of soils or rock along the right-of-way. To protect soil and vegetation that insulate the permafrost, the proposal is to add fill to align the embankment.

DCN DIGITAL MEDIA

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