Thank you, Mr. Roland. Mr. Handley.

Mr. Chairman, the department will put in their best estimate each year as they do their main estimates. Of course, that is revised as we collect more information, do more excavation. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Handley. Mr. Krutko.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. On the same matter with regard to the whole area of liability or insurance, was there any insurance? Also, did you check to see what the legal ramifications are of this, in case someone else was liable for the fuel spill?

Thank you, Mr. Krutko. Mr. Handley.

Mr. Chairman, no, there was no insurance. Since it is a spill on our property, then as the GNWT we are liable for it. I suppose there could be some question of whether the federal government would share some of it from years ago when that facility was theirs, but at this point, the main attention has been to clean up the spill, not argue these legal battles and then clean up later on. We have to get on with it.

Thank you, Mr. Handley. Mr. Krutko.

Just from the Minister's statement, where he stated this was a federal property taken over by the government, does the federal government have any obligations by way of liabilities? Knowingly, they transferred us something which may have been contaminated. They have responsibility, knowing we took on something that is costing us as a government from trying to recoup some of those funds from the federal government, because there should have been some sort of an arrangement of transfer, through a transfer agreement or what not, that they will be responsible for any environmental hazards that may come along with that facility.

Thank you, Mr. Krutko. Mr. Handley.

Mr. Chairman, it has been a number of years since the federal government owned that land. It would be very difficult, in fact impossible, for the department to now prove when the spill actually started and who the liability rests with.

While we do not want to give up on the possibility, I am very sceptical that we would get any assistance from the federal government because, one, we cannot prove when the spill started and second, they may argue that when we took the transfer of the land, then we accepted it as is. It would be a long, long argument, but the main difficulty is just to prove that the spill is actually that old.

Thank you, Mr. Handley. Mr. Krutko.

Mr. Chairman, the Minister stated that this had come to their attention in 1996. I would like to ask the Minister exactly why has it taken that long for this to come to a point where you are having to use a special warrant to get the funds to do the cleanup? Why was it not put into the business planning process so that we could have had a chance to review it and see what the history was through the committee stage and also through the budgetary stage? Why has it taken so long from the time that it was identified in 1996, where we are now dealing with it through special warrant?

Thank you, Mr. Krutko. Mr. Handley.

Mr. Chairman, as I pointed out, the spill was discovered in 1996 when an underground fuel tank was removed. Following that, Public Works & Services at the time contracted a local firm to investigate the extent of the contamination and to recommend a cleanup and environmental remediation plan.

The results of that showed that the contamination had spread to a fairly extensive area, but had not yet seeped into the adjacent residential areas. The plan was put together and moved on as quickly as our government became aware of it.

I cannot really speak to what happened between 1996 and 1999 or 2000, when we became aware that this was a major issue. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Handley. Mr. Krutko.

Does the Minister have any idea of what is the cost to date that has been expended on this thing since the time that it has been identified to doing the studies and seeing how big of an area is covered? There has to be expenditures already on this particular thing. Do we have an idea of what the expenditures have been to date on this particular problem?

Thank you, Mr. Krutko. Mr. Handley.

Mr. Chairman, no, I do not know what has been spent to date. If the Member wishes, we can try and dig back in the records and find out what was spent. However, there has not been any meaningful amount of excavation done until this time. I doubt that it was more than testing and planning.

Thank you, Mr. Handley. Mr. Krutko.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. That is the problem. We do not really know what the total cost of this is going to be. If it continues to accumulate and we find out that the problem is going to be costing us...until we can nail it down and see what the overall cost is and what the long-term feasibility cost of cleaning this up is going to be, I think it is important we have some sort of a mechanism so we can identify those.

One of the concerns was raised in regard to the whole area of the Auditor General report and the whole area of environmental liabilities, is these types of problems that we come across, where we have to start having a better inventory of exactly what the assets are that this government owns, and what are the conditions of the properties and the liability that come along with these properties when we take them on, or we devolve them to somebody else to take on.

I think that we as a government have to realize that once these costs start appearing, it could be tens of millions of dollars, if not hundreds of millions of dollars, in the future. I think that we have to do a better job of pinpointing these things and nailing them down and get a better number so we can see exactly what the total costs of these really are.

So I think that we do have to do more in that area. So I would like to ask the Minister, could he somehow compile that information to see exactly what the costs are that have been spent to date and a general idea of how long it is going to take to clean this site up? What are the total costs of this specific project? I feel that this is just the tip of the iceberg, where there are going to be a number of other areas creeping up, similar to this one. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Krutko. Mr. Handley.

Mr. Chairman, we are pushing ahead with having departments identify any environmental liabilities that they may have and that is an area of a fair bit of emphasis during the business planning process. In this particular one, the important thing in my view is that we get on with cleaning it up. It is not going to improve on its own. In fact, it will spread.

As I said before, we estimate that we will spend up to $2.6 million over the next ten years with the bulk of that money being spent this year. Those are all based on estimates from what we can tell.

Like all spills that are underground, it is difficult to know exactly what you are dealing with until you are practically finished with the job. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Handley. Mr. Nitah.