printer-friendly version

Profile

The Bathurst Inlet Port and Road Project (BIPR) will make a substantial contribution to the economic development of Nunavut.  The road will provide remote mines in Nunavut, currently limited to costly air transport and a winter ice road for access to commercial centres, a route to the Arctic Ocean.  The Port facility will be on the west side of Bathurst Inlet, approximately 40 kilometres south of the Bathurst Inlet community.  The proposed road route for the feasibility study is from Bathurst Inlet to Contwoyto Lake, and runs 211 kilometres.

Overview

The project will reduce transportation costs in the region, thereby increasing the economic feasibility of existing mineral deposits and encouraging new mineral exploration.  Once this road is in place, there is potential for a larger network of connecting roads to access other mineral properties such as Izok, George Lake, Goose Lake, and Hackett River.  The BIPR route intersects with the existing Tibbitt to Contwoyto winter road, thus it will have a connection south to Yellowknife, and to the major diamond mines in the Northwest Territories.  The project will reduce the costs of fuel and supplies for Kitikmeot communities and increase employment, training, business development, and taxation revenues to the Government of Nunavut.

Experience

In 2001, Rescan was hired to conduct and manage all of the necessary baseline environmental studies required for the environmental impact statement (EIS), to produce the EIS, and to help guide it through regulatory approval.  Baseline work included studies on climate, geology, terrain and soils, vegetation and ecosystem mapping, acid/alkaline rock drainage, freshwater environment (fish, fish habitat, and aquatic ecology), marine environment (physical, chemical and biological oceanography, and marine fish and fish habitat), as well as socio-economics.  In January 2008, Rescan wrote the EIS and submitted it to the Nunavut Impact Review Board.