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U of L, N.W.T. forge ties over water |
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Written by Caroline Zentner LETHBRIDGE HERALD
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Tuesday, 06 October 2009 |
A closer link between the University of Lethbridge and the Northwest Territories was forged Tuesday with the visit of a government representative who just happens to be a U of L alumnus.
Michael Miltenberger, who studied sociology at the U of L and graduated in 1975, is deputy premier and minister of environment and natural resources for the N.W.T. government and he’s keenly aware of the stress on water resources in the territory he represents. Through his contact with Dennis Fitzpatrick, former U of L vice-president of research, and Bob Sanford, the southern-Alberta based chairman of Canada’s branch of the United Nations’ Water for Life program, Miltenberger visited the U of L’s water and environmental science building and met with its key water researchers.
“They’ve been very helpful to us with our water strategy,” Miltenberger said. “In the north we have some significant issues with climate change and water.”
Those issues include melting permafrost and ice, the decline of the barrenland caribou, invasive species, the Alberta oilsands to the south and the possibility of more dams on the Slave and Peace rivers, in addition to the already-existing Bennett Dam on the Peace River in British Columbia.
“We have concerns about watershed management in the Mackenzie basin and the issue of cumulative impact as it affects us all,” Miltenberger said. “Things are happening faster in the north than anywhere else.”
The circumpolar regions are like the canary in the coalmine, he added, as the climate is more extreme and melting is occurring faster, magnifying the impacts.
The proposed Mackenzie pipeline will further impact the Northwest Territories and the territorial government also has to deal with 320,000 metric tonnes of arsenic trioxide stuffed into mine shafts on the shores of Great Slave Lake. The toxic dust was created in the production of gold between 1948 and 1999 at the Giant Mine.
“We’re going to freeze it in place because we don’t know what else to do with it,” Miltenberger said.
The N.W.T. has released its first science and research agenda, which has been shared with the U of L. Miltenberger said he hopes his government and the U of L will be able to collaborate more in the future.
Miltenberger was first elected to the legislative assembly of the N.W.T. in October, 1995. He’s held various portfolios since then including education, culture and employment, health and social services and environment and natural resources.
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