Weenusk radar site to be cleaned

Weenusk First Nation is looking forward to the clean up of nearby Site 500, the largest abandoned Mid-Canada Line radar site in northern Ontario.
“The clean up of the radar sites has been a long time coming and Weenusk First Nation is eager to move ahead with this project,” said Weenusk Chief Edmund Hunter. “Jobs will be created over the next three years for people from my community and that is very important to us. As well, the clean up will help improve the health of the environment for the people who live on this land.”
Weenusk will be working closely with the Ontario government on the clean up of Site 500, which is located northeast of the community about three kilometres from the Winisk River near Hudson Bay.
“Our government continues to move forward to clean up the 16 Mid-Canada Line radar sites,” said Natural Resources Minister Linda Jeffrey. “We welcome the skills and expertise the Weenusk people will be providing to the Site 500 clean up.”
Hunter said his community is pleased with the Site 500 cleanup, which calls for Weenusk to operate a remote base camp for workers and assist with the clean up.
“So we can create at least 40 to 50 jobs over the next three years,” Hunter said, noting the jobs will be “mainly labourers, heavy equipment operators, a general manager and site foreman.”
Weenusk has signed a three-year $8 million agreement with Ontario to provide and operate the base camp, while Ontario has signed a one-year $3 million agreement with Winisk 500 Corporation, a band-owned business, to do general clean-up work at Site 500.
Ontario is planning to invest $55 million over a six-year period to clean up 16 Mid-Canada Line sites that are contaminated with toxic materials such as polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), hydrocarbons, mercury and asbestos and littered with debris and derelict buildings.
“The most contaminated area is inside Site 500 and there are caribou nearby that site,” Hunter said, explaining the caribou calve in the area during the spring and remain in the area during the summer.
Two Mid-Canada Line sites — Site 060 along the railline to Moosonee and Site 070 near the town of Ramore — were cleaned up in 2009, with the removal of about 50,000 metric tonnes of contaminated soil and the successful restoration of the sites.
The Mid-Canada Line was built by the Department of National Defence at 98 locations across Canada during the Cold War in the mid-1950s, with 14 of the 16 sites in Ontario located along the coasts of Hudson Bay and James Bay.
The Ontario sites have not been used by the Department of National Defence since the mid-1960s, and ownership of the land was transferred to Ontario.