Millions of litres of harmful contaminants — including sewage and jet fuel — have been spilled across great swaths of Canada’s pristine Arctic in recent years, an analysis by The Canadian Press has found.
A classified government database reveals the alarming extent to which Canada’s North has been an accidental dumping ground for dangerous liquids.
This never-before released information comes to light as the Harper government reviews its Arctic environmental-protection rules in the wake of a catastrophic oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
The Arctic spills to date have been smaller than the giant BP disaster off the U.S. coast, but are a reminder of the continuing threat from development to one of Canada’s most vulnerable ecosystems.
The information has been kept in an environmental-enforcement database called NEMISIS. The acronym stands for National Enforcement Management Information System and Intelligence System. Federal enforcement officers use the database to track and prosecute polluters and environmental lawbreakers.
It took The Canadian Press two years and a complaint to the information commissioner to pry the data from Environment Canada under the Access to Information Act.
