Karen Mackenzie
Northern News Services
Published Monday, October 01, 2007

NUNAVUT - Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami (ITK) is opposing a possible move by the Canadian Navy to begin dumping food waste into the Arctic Ocean.

"People that leave garbage should pick it up. The Arctic is a clean place, but it won't be clean much longer if people don't clean up after themselves," said ITK president Mary Simon. "It's certainly not the Inuit that created the pollution."

Simon said she is concerned that the navy is changing its practices due to recent amendments to the Canadian Shipping Act.

Dumping regulations were relaxed in one zone around north Baffin Island in July 2007.

Technically, the navy is not required to follow Canada's Shipping Act rules, "but we do," said Lt.-Cmdr. Sue Stefko, a member of navy public affairs.

Vessels currently discharge treated sewage offshore.

Submarines, which do not have the capacity to treat their sewage, dump their waste untreated into the water at least 12 nautical miles off shore.

The navy is now considering a proposal to garburate - or pulp up - its food waste and discharge it overboard, according to Stefko.

This would only be done when necessary for health reasons - due to putrefying food - or for lack of space, she said.

"We are being called to go into the Arctic more often than we have in the past," she said. "We're looking to the future to see what our needs might be."

Before heading out, the navy conducts internal environmental assessments which "lays out the dos and don'ts for where they travel," Stefko said. "As a whole we try to minimize out footprint."

Simon said she wrote to National Defence Minister Peter McKay to express her opposition and seek clarification of the issue.

She has not received any reply.

The dumping issue is indicative of much larger concerns, she said.

"Why would we increase the problem when we are talking about addressing the effects of climate change?" Simon said.

"This wanting to dump garbage into the ocean is one factor, one part of the bigger picture."

Darlene Willie, mayor of Arctic Bay, said she shares many of Simon's concerns about the fragile nature of the environment.

"That's where we do our hunting. That's where we eat," she said.

"Even if they treat their waste a number of times, it just makes a lot more sense to go to the nearest settlement to dispose of it."

Local hunters always pack out their garbage when they return from the land, "and it's important for everyone to look after themselves," Willie said.