Marten Falls First Nation Environmental Assessment on Community Access Road

Marten Falls First Nation has embarked on an Environmental Assessment Project with the approval of the Ontario Government. The project stems from an announcement on August 21,2017 with then Premier Wynne on the announcement of All-Season Community Access Road to Marten Falls First Nation.

Thus far, Marten Falls First Nation has established a project team with professional consultants and community members and, has recently hired a consortium of consultants led by AECOM to undertake the work to conduct an environmental assessment and preliminary design engineering studies on Phase 1 of the project.

The All-Season Community Access Road project has two Phases. Phase 1 is an All-Season Community Access Road that will connect Marten Falls First Nation to forestry access roads near Painter Lake located north of Nakina, Ontario. Phase 2 is an All-Season Supply Road that will branch off the Phase 1 All-Season Community Access Road north of the Albany River and connect to the mineral rich area known as the Ring of Fire, providing the community a road link to the economic opportunities that may develop in the future.

At this time, we have agreements to complete an environmental assessment and preliminary engineering design for Phase 1 and, preliminary baseline studies only on Phase 2. No environmental assessment or preliminary design work is being done on Phase 2 at this time. The baseline study work on Phase 2 is being done to gather a more robust regional dataset to better inform decision making should Marten Falls First Nation decide to complete Phase 2 in the future.