The Distant Early Warning (DEW) Line system was installed along Canada's north coast in the 1950s to protect North America from foreign attacks. Now there is more concern about contamination at the sites than about Russian long-range bombers, but getting the sites cleaned up is no easy task.

The job will be particularly demanding at Komakuk Beach, where clean-up started last summer. Located on the Yukon's North Coast in Ivvavik National Park, this site will be cleaned up to a higher standard than any other station on the DEW Line.

The environment there is supposed to be restored to its pre-DEW Line condition, which is no small undertaking for an area that has been a military site for more than four decades. PCB contamination is a major problem at all of the sites. These chemicals were used in everything from transformers to paint in the 1950s.

Plans for the clean-up at Komakuk Beach are complicated even further by the fact that the site has a heritage designation. When the federal government reviewed heritage buildings around the country several years ago, the Komakuk site scored high on its ranking system as a significant site. No final decision has been made on what the heritage designation will mean for the site.

Komakuk Beach was one of two prototype sites built for the DEW Line in the 1950s, and will continue to operate as a short-range unstaffed radar station. The site is being cleaned up under an agreement with the Department of National Defence, and $9.8 million has been slated for the job.

To date 21 DEW Line stations have been abandoned, and deciding who should pay to clean up these sites was not an easy matter. The U.S. government built the DEW Line, but is not legally obligated to pay the clean-up costs. The same holds true for other military projects such as the Haines Pipeline.

After lengthy negotiations, the U.S. government agreed to give Canada $100 million (in U.S. dollars) worth of credits which can be used to buy military equipment from the United States. Canada is topping up that amount to a total of $280 million, in Canadian dollars.

At most of the sites, many of the building materials and other debris will be buried on site. This will not be allowed at Komakuk Beach. All of the demolition materials must be taken away from the site by barge. Even the landfills along the shoreline must be dug up and physically removed from the site.

The PCB-laden paint used at all of the DEW Line sites is a major unresolved issue. Rob Martell is the project manager for the DEW Line clean-up, which is being handled by Defence Construction Canada, the Crown Corporation responsible for military construction. He says that PCB-laced paint was used on all four sides of almost every piece of wood used in the buildings.

"PCBs made the paint more durable," explains Vic Enns, the head of pollution abatement for Environment Canada in Whitehorse. "PCBs were wonder chemicals when they were used in the 1950s because they were so extremely stable. But that is also why they are so hazardous. They persist in the natural environment for such a long time."

Since PCB is a regulated substance, Environment Canada is responsible for deciding how it must be handled in the clean-up. If the paint is classified as a PCB waste, any materials coated with the substance may need to be taken by barge to a hazardous waste facility in the south.

The cheaper alternative is to bury the building materials, paint and all, at a hazardous waste landfill in the arctic. "We don't know yet whether demolition materials with this paint will be permitted to be landfilled," explains Enns. Deciding this matter will be difficult as it has implications for other buildings in Canada as well.

Non-hazardous demolition materials from Komakuk Beach will be taken to a landfill at Shingle Point. This DEW Line station, located at the western edge of the Mackenzie Delta, will continue to operate as a long-range radar station. Stokes Point, the third Yukon site, is also within the national park boundaries. Currently there are no plans to clean up this site.

For more information on the clean-up of the DEW Line sites, contact Environment Canada at 667-3400.