ECONOMY, ENVIRONMENT AND CLIMATE CHANGE

Commitment 1.3.1 – Using the Land Use and Sustainability Framework to be clear and transparent, we will:
Develop an integrated comprehensive approach to the management of contaminated sites including prioritizing, sharing of responsibility in collaboration with other governments, monitoring, and a sound financial security system to prevent public liabilities.

Contaminated Sites Management

The purpose of the Contaminated Sites Management Policy and Procedures Manual is to provide a policy and comprehensive set of procedures on the approach to managing contaminated sites (milestone 1, 2 and 6). The Policy and Procedures Manual will cover program-level requirements (e.g., the annual cycle of program activities such as: maintaining an inventory of sites; booking and updating environmental liabilities; ranking sites according to priority for action and funding; preparing a longer-term contaminated sites management plan; reviewing and approving project plans and progress reports; and preparing annual performance reports) and project-level procedures.

Financial Security System

The Government of the Northwest Territories (GNWT) holds financial securities for resource development projects to ensure that developers minimize and remediate the environmental impact of their activities without recourse to public funds.

The Department of Lands is working with other GNWT departments to build a financial securities tracking system to assist in managing this GNWT responsibility. The development of the Securities Administration and Processing system addresses a priority recommendation from the 2012 federal Auditor General’s report on financial assurances and environmental risks. Steps involved in developing the system include the system design (milestone 3), development and testing (milestone 4), and implementation and training (milestone 5).