Critics Worry That Military Interest in Arctic Creating Massive Junkyard

By JORGE BARRERA

OTTAWA (CP) – Canada’s increased military presence in the Arctic poses environmental dangers as bullets, shells, shell-casings and other war-game detritus winds up in ecologically sensitive waters and tundra, say critics.

The Canadian Forces mounted four operations in the Arctic this year, one more than in 2006, and Prime Minister Stephen Harper recently promised to build a deep-sea port and military training centre to bolster Canada’s claim over the region.

Russia recently made its own move to assert its sovereignty over the top of the world by placing a flag beneath the North Pole.

The federal government has carefully documented its stepped-up Arctic presence with official photographs on the National Defence website showing soldiers firing ammunition rounds.

The photographs of the firing exercise are from last year’s Operation Lancaster in and around Lancaster Sound, a body of water between Nunavut’s Devon and Baffin islands (www.combatcamera.forces.gc.ca).

One depicts camouflage-clad soldiers from Quebec’s Van Doos regiment, currently fighting in Afghanistan, firing MP5 9-mm machine guns. Another shows a gun crew firing a .50-calibre machine-gun.

The Van Doos also fired shotguns, C7s and 9-mm Sig Sauer pistols, but were not photographed.

“The last thing we need is for the military to turn the area into a target practice zone,” said Jamie Kirkpatrick, spokesman for the Sierra Club of Canada.

“It is already a fragile ecosystem under pressure from around the world.”

Once a frontline during the Cold War, the Arctic has again become an international playing field. Climate change has lengthened the season of open water along the Northwest Passage, putting pressure on Canada’s claim over the channel.

Locals and environmental groups worry the environment could suffer from the renewed global attention.

Parks Canada, which had an official present during the military exercise, says Lancaster Sound is “one of the richest marine mammal areas in the world.” The summers bring most of the world’s narwhal population, a third of the continent’s belugas and the endangered eastern population of the bowhead whale. It was once considered a possible marine conservation area.

Pond Inlet, Nunavut-born Philip Paneak is familiar with the environmental fallout from the increased military presence in the region.

The interim senior administrative officer for Pond Inlet said his community is still involved in the environmental cleanup of the Distance Early Warning or DEW line that was built in the 1950s in response to fears of an Arctic invasion from the old Soviet Union.

Defence Construction Canada calls the DEW line project the “biggest environmental cleanup in North America … in one of the world’s most fragile ecosystems.”

“In the last 10 to 15 years we have been trying to clean up all the old Canadian and American military sites. We don’t want to see anything else on top of what we are cleaning up already,” said Paneak, adding he did not know about the firing exercises in the sound, which lies near his community.

“We don’t do that unless we are shooting at something,” he said.

A spokeswoman for the military’s Joint Task Force North said the firing exercise is a normal part of military training.

“They are always exercising capabilities, otherwise what would be the point of being there?” said Summer Halliday.

Brig.-Gen. Chris Whitecross, commander of Joint Task Force North and of this year’s operations, said similar at-sea firing exercises were not conducted this time around.

The fourth operation, the 10-day Nanook 07, ended Friday with a fuel spill exercise involving the Canadian Coast Guard and the military.

Western Arctic NDP MP Denis Bevington would not comment on the firing exercise, but said Ottawa should not use the military to assert its sovereignty at the expense of the environment. He said the government should instead bolster its scientific presence in the Arctic.

“It is not about protecting the Arctic with guns. It is about us establishing a legitimate position in the Arctic through peaceful means,” said Bevington.

The Operation Lancaster firing exercise is described with graphic detail in September’s Harper’s Magazine.

“The unpolluted water boiled as we polluted it with lead,” says a lengthy article on the current battle over the Arctic. “When they finished, they kicked the shells into the sea.”

The military does not use lead bullets, because they jam in automatic weapons. Instead, ball ammunition made from a copper-and-steel alloy is used.

U.S. plans to create live-fire zones in the Great Lakes stirred environmental and safety concerns in Parliament last fall. The U.S. eventually said they would suspend their plans for more consultations.