The NWT government has announced a potential second resupply barge from Hay River to the Sahtu after residents said the first barge’s timings left them virtually no time to get freight to the terminal for transport.
On Thursday, the GNWT’s Marine Transportation Services division said it was “hopeful” barge service to the Sahtu can take place this year despite ongoing low water concerns. (Last year, no barges could sail for the same reason.)
However, in announcing a barge trip to Norman Wells, Fort Good Hope and Tulita, MTS said residents had only until Monday – a four-day window – to get their cargo to Hay River for loading.
Such a short turnaround time staggered some residents, who had been waiting to hear if the season could go ahead at all, never mind the expectation that a barge would sail in a few days’ time.
“I honestly thought it was a misprint at first,” said Joshua Earls of Rampart Rentals, a Norman Wells grocery and general store. He thought the GNWT must have meant July 30, not June 30.
Advertisement.
Advertisement.
“It’s an impossible feat for us to get anything there with this short an amount of time, at least for what I need to ship,” Earls told Cabin Radio, adding he had heard from others who felt the same way.
“For my grocery supplies, I need to let my supplier have a two-week lead time,” he said.
“This few days doesn’t allow us to do that. Even if we were to beg and plead with our supplier, maybe they could get us to probably a week or 10 days, but we need at least that. This was really an impossibility at this point.”
Esker Norman, at Norman Wells-based Black Spruce Education, said his suppliers had told him they would need at least a week – missing the June 30 cut-off.
Advertisement.
Advertisement.
Norman said he had called to ask MTS if there was chance a second barge would sail or if June 30 was a hard deadline.
“The answer was kind-of a fairly aggressive and fairly harsh tone of: ‘That’s the day things need to be here – if they aren’t here, then they’re not making it to Norman Wells this year,'” he said.
Norman allowed that the staff member was probably getting “a lot of angry phone calls,” but said he could not understand why residents had not been given more of a heads-up that a barge was a possibility and people should start arranging freight in case one could sail.
“I’m sure there are some people whose orders are coming from Edmonton, and they can manage to get it more or less overnight to Hay River. So that makes sense. You’re still getting it,” said Norman. “But that’s not everyone’s situation.”
Second barge has July 9 cut-off
As it turns out, a second barge will sail if conditions allow.
MTS announced on Friday a new barge will sail with a freight cut-off of July 9. The June 30 barge will be primarily for fuel, MTS stated, “with space available for cargo going to Tulita and Norman Wells.”
“MTS is also accepting cargo for a potential second trip to the Sahtu, going to Tulita, Norman Wells,and Fort Good Hope. The cargo cut-off for customers for the second trip is July 9,” that statement added.
Vince McKay, the infrastructure minister responsible for MTS, told Cabin Radio he had been briefed on the second trip late on Friday afternoon.
Advertisement.
Advertisement.
“There’s a plan to just make sure we have the ability to get some more shipments into the Sahtu,” McKay said.
“The first run essentially is that we have the fuel here ready to go, and that’s a priority.”
Asked if the second barge was a response to Sahtu residents’ concerns, McKay said: “Yes and no.”
“Part of the thing is we need to get the fuel in there. I know the department has been working hard to try to accommodate the deck freight,” he said, “but I think there’s also the thought behind it that they’re going to need to do another run anyways, with the fuel.”
Officials have said the GNWT had to wait until the Canadian Coast Guard began placing navigational buoys in the Mackenzie River before staff could assess the possibility of barge trips and begin lining them up. Now, the haste is in part to get barges through the river while conditions allow.
“The water is not bad essentially past Fort Providence,” said McKay, describing conditions on much of the river as “relatively normal.”
“From my understanding, if they have the ability to do more trips, they will,” he said.
“I appreciate and understand the frustration of the short notice,” McKay added, asserting that MTS staff had tried to take decisions as soon as they could once buoys were in the water.
“They’re definitely working to accommodate the needs and try to get everything to the Sahtu.”
Sara Verheul contributed reporting.
