Hello All!

Some of you will recall Jim Weller telling us that the Northwest Territories
ice roads were late going in.  It seems that they did not stay around all
that long either.

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 Early ice road closure seen as opportunity for others
Last updated Mar 27 2006 02:43 PM CST
CBC News
The ice road to the N.W.T.'s diamond mines has now closed down, leaving the
mines without much of their needed supplies for the year.

The road was shut down Sunday afternoon, weeks ahead of schedule and only a
few days after warm temperatures had forced an early, temporary closure
last week. The closure leaves the mines without much of their needed fuel,
explosives, building materials and other supplies.

As of last week, only about 60 per cent of the loads needed made it to the mines.

More than 7,000 truckloads of material are usually brought to the
territory's diamond mines along the 570-kilometre road every winter.

While the closure of the road is bad news for the diamond mine operators,
proponents of two road-and-port projects in Nunavut say the early closure
would work in their favour.

The president of the Kitikmeot Inuit Association, whose business arm has
been lobbying for the Bathurst Inlet Port-and-Road project, says the
closure gives his association an opportunity.

"It's a good time to say to the industry and to the government 'this
is what we need in the Kitikmeot to support the mining industry, having
this all-weather road in place'," he says.

The head of Wolfden Resources, a mining company that's considering building
its own road-and-port project to feed several of its mine projects, says he
doesn't think the early melting of the road is a long-term problem.

But Ewan Downie says it points to the need to come up with other options.

"I do think it speaks volumes to needing alternate routes into the
diamond mines and into other projects," he says.

Both project proponents still have to submit detailed environmental
information before their projects can go through the hearing process.

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And so it goes.

Take care,

Steven Horn (steven.horn{at}gmail.com)
Moderator, ALASKA_CHAT 
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