Deserted Arctic weather station is a mess

At the western entrance of the Northwest passage, on Prince Patrick Island, lies an abandoned weather station; another part of the Arctic mess puzzle. Left behind since 1997, Mould Bay site is nothing more than a big error of the past. Even if Arctic sovereignty wasn’t a hot topic back then, why would anybody take the decision to abandon a station in such a key location? Money? I sure hope savings never was the idea behind that; it will eventually cost a whole lot more to clean up the site than it would have cost to maintain it and keep it habitable over the years (According to reports, it isn’t fit for human activities). Why would the official decommission of this remote outpost be postponed by more than ten years? How irresponsible is this?

As mentionned earlier, this is just a piece of the canadian Arctic pollution puzzle: the full federal contaminated sites inventory can be found here. At least it seems that our part of the Arctic dump has been mapped and that it will be cleaned within the next few centuries (Yes, I refer to the use of the word quickly in the following statement).

I have asked my officials to proceed quickly on the clean-up of this shameful situation that has been allowed to linger since 2002 – this government will act where previous governments failed (…) We are using the investments made in Canada’s Economic Action Plan to clean up the legacy of contaminated sites across Canada by accelerating the assessment and remediation work. Mould Bay is part of this plan.
Honourable Jim Prentice, Canadian Minister of the Environment

Now walk the talk and prove me wrong Jim.

Sources:
Vancouver Sun, SYS CON Media

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