What is the NWT doing to address low water levels?

NWT officials say they are “exploring innovative solutions” as record low water levels heavily disrupt the territory’s 2024 summer barge resupply season.

Infrastructure minister Caroline Wawzonek led an update on the situation for a committee of regular MLAs on Wednesday.

She said low water over the past two summers has been “extremely challenging” for Marine Transportation Services, or MTS, the barging service owned by the NWT government.

Last year, the final resupply barges for Norman Wells and Tulita were scrapped due to low water on the Mackenzie River. Before this year’s sailing season had even begun, the territory cancelled resupply barges for Tulita, Norman Wells and later Fort Good Hope as a result of extremely low water – and after the Canadian Coast Guard said it would not deploy navigational aids on the Mackenzie River.

“We acknowledge these cancellations will be having an impact on residents, businesses, communities and Indigenous governments,” Wawzonek said.

“We are committed to finding creative ways to help address some of these challenges.”

The minister said territorial officials have been speaking with leaders and chambers of commerce in affected communities to better understand the impact of the cancelled barges.

Wawzonek said the territory is seeking “targeted support” from the federal government to get cargo to the Sahtu. She added her department is working on contingency planning for this barging season.

In the face of low water levels, Steve Hagerman, the director of MTS, said the service adapted its schedule and reduced its draft – the distance from the bottom of the barge to the water level – from five to four feet. He said lowering the draft means less cargo can be carried on a barge, increasing the number of tows required.

To get fuel to Beaufort Delta communities, he said, MTS plans to have it delivered “over the top,” meaning around the Arctic coast.

‘A variety of vessels in a variety of places’

Hagerman said it was “quite fortuitous” that some tugs and barges were left in Inuvik and Tuktoyaktuk at the end of the 2023 season, as it allowed MTS to base some of this year’s operations in the Beaufort Delta rather than Hay River.

“It helped us to get our tows built and to get our deliveries done quicker than we would if everything was in Hay River,” he said.

“The advantage of having a variety of vessels in a variety of places gives us an opportunity to take a variety of approaches,” added Tracy St Denis, assistant deputy minister of infrastructure.

Hagerman said MTS will open the terminals in Tuktoyaktuk and Inuvik on July 2, about three weeks earlier than usual, and has extended the cargo cutoff date to August 1.

He said future investments will be needed to improve those terminals as they “are in rather poor shape.”

Hagerman said operating out of the Beaufort Delta has allowed some staff to focus on improving the shape of the shipyard, synchrolift and MV Jock McNiven in Hay River this summer.

Work to restore Hay River’s harbour began on June 9 and is expected to run until September 13, he added.

St Denis said MTS has added a small tug to its fleet to help with that work and to support a smaller vessel in Łútsël K’é.

“The reality is we’re better suited now than we were a year ago,” she said.

St Denis said dredging of the Hay River harbour is expected to help with low water levels, including any decreases related to the Site C dam.

“At this point in time we are cautiously optimistic that the work that’s under way, regardless of the amount of sediment moved, it will be helpful,” she said.

The NWT government has estimated that BC Hydro’s plans to fill the reservoir for the dam this summer could cause Great Slave Lake to temporarily drop as much as 8.5 cm. However, the territory’s hydrologists have said current low water levels in the NWT are the result of ongoing extreme drought and not related to any dams.

The future of MTS

The territory is currently reviewing MTS operations and St Denis said department staff are already planning for the 2025 barging season.

She said that includes discussions with the proposed developer of the M-18 well on the Tuktoyaktuk peninsula, as having a local supply of fuel would allow barges to leave sooner in the season.

As MTS faces continued challenges year after year, some MLAs questioned on Wednesday whether the NWT government is considering alternative methods for transporting fuel and goods to communities.

Wawzonek said the “primary and kind-of most obvious solution” is developing the Mackenzie Valley Highway.

She said she also plans to speak with her counterpart in the Yukon about making improvements to its side of the Dempster Highway.

“Right now there’s some bottlenecks that make it too difficult where there’s significant cargo that can’t go up the Dempster,” she said.

Wawzonek said MLAs have raised other ideas over the years such as airships and drones. While the minister said she was aware the territory would have to be creative about solutions, she cautioned it does not have a research and development unit. She added that Transport Canada has not yet approved airships as a fully regulated form of transportation and, as a risk-averse government in a small jurisdiction, the NWT will not likely be leading the pursuit to regulate the technology.

“The downside of recurrent emergencies and challenges is financial and human capacity to undertake creative and exciting things is drawn down,” she said. “Any thought or dream I might have had that we might someday pay down our debt, ekes away by the day when stuff like this is going on.”

Some MLAs have suggested that the territory sell MTS or partner with private industry to run the service.

Wawzonek said while she wasn’t closing the door to that idea, “MTS hasn’t exactly been a moneymaker of late, so I’m not sure it’s one that people are ripe to go and buy into.”

The NWT government took over the company in 2017 after former owner Northern Transportation Company Limited filed for bankruptcy.

Wawzonek said while she doesn’t expect MTS to generate revenue for the NWT, the territory won’t be abandoning the service any time soon. She said barging is still a cost-effective way to resupply communities.

“It may be one of those situations where we’re never going to make money on it, but we still have to find the lowest-cost way to do it, to deliver that service,” she said.