Yellowknife community garden expands, arsenic-free

The Yellowknife Community Garden Collective is building 24 new plots at its Woolgar Avenue garden this year after the expansion was put on hold last year due to contaminated topsoil.

The new plots were delayed by a year because of a soil delivery that was tainted with arsenic.

"We had to get the old soil removed and we had to get the new soil delivered," said Dave Taylor, site manager with the collective.

The City of Yellowknife and the territorial Department of Environment and Natural Resources is setting up a working group to ensure top soil from around Yellowknife is safe to garden with.

"It looks like they're going to pay a little more attention to where soils are sourced in the city and where they go and whether or not they're contaminated when they move," he said. 

The collective says it tests all of the topsoil it receives and the latest round of tests came back clear. 

This month the collective will grow even more with 12 plots in the Niven Lake neighbourhood.