Aboriginal leaders from Déline and Tlicho in the Northwest Territories signed an agreement Saturday to work together to clean up the abandoned Port Radium uranium mine site on the east side of Great Bear Lake.

Tlicho Grand Chief George Mackenzie, who travelled to Déline for Saturday's ceremony, said the deal lays groundwork for his people and the people of Déline to work on cleanup efforts.

"This is an agreement where the two parties will work together, the Tlicho people and the Déline people," he said.

Leroy Andre, president of the Déline Land Corp., said his people are happy to be part of the agreement. After 12 years of working on the issue, they can finally start cleaning up the abandoned mine, he said.

"By signing this agreement we're actually committing ourselves to this marriage, as they put it," he said. "We will work together for our people so that we could negotiate some of the work that's coming up and clean up some of these contaminated sites in our area."

The deal grew from a $7-million contract Ottawa awarded in December to the Yellowknife-based Aboriginal Engineering Ltd., a Tlicho-owned company, to clean up the mine, located about 440 kilometres north of Yellowknife and 265 kilometres east of Déline.

Aboriginal Engineering's proposal, which Ottawa had approved for giving the best technical proposal for the lowest overall price, promised to maximize employment and contracting opportunities for the people of Déline. Port Radium had employed people from the Sahtu Dene community for decades, mainly to carry sacks of uranium ore from the mine.

The mine produced uranium, pitchblende and silver between 1930 and 1982. When it closed in 1982, it was cleaned up according to the standards of the day, but there are still high radiation level areas and hazardous waste that need to be dealt with, the government said.

Work is expected to begin this year and continue for several years.