Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I have a return to an oral question asked by Mr. Delorey on Wednesday, June 28, 2000, about whether the Department of Transportation had plans to move the aircraft fuel distribution tanks at the Hay River Airport.
To answer the Member's question satisfactorily, I will need to give a bit of background. Over the many years that Transport Canada owned and operated the Hay River Airport, the soil around the fuel distribution system was contaminated by fuel spillages. One of the conditions of the 1995 transfer of the airports to the territorial government was that Transport Canada accepted responsibility for any environmental damage on the airport properties that had occurred prior to the transfer. Today at the Hay River Airport, the former fuel distributor, under the supervision of Transport Canada, is remediating the soil contamination.
In the meantime, a new, environmentally friendly fuel distribution system has been installed by a new fuel distributor at a less convenient location across the air terminal apron from the former fuel distribution system.
The bio-remediation process will take at least two years for the bacterial microbes to digest the hydrocarbon contaminants. Should the Department of Transportation interrupt the remediation process prematurely, it would thereby assume the environmental liability from Transport Canada. For this reason, the department will not agree to re-locate the new fuel distribution system on the preferred former site before it is confident that the contamination has been cleaned-up satisfactorily and completely.
I would caution the Member that two years is an estimated forecast and not a firm date. The process is biological and subject to the variabilities of biological processes. In any case, nothing will be done at the site until the environmental situation has been rectified. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.