A massive fuel spill in the community of Trout Lake, N.W.T., has residents wondering not only if their lake is contaminated, but also if another leak could happen.

Nearly 10,000 litres of diesel leaked out of a tank at the Northland Utilities power station earlier this week, flowing into drainage ditches around the community. Some of the fuel even spilled onto the frozen surface of Trout Lake itself.

A hunter passing through the area detected the spilled fuel on Tuesday. Crews then discovered a cracked pipe coming out of the tank in question, caused by thawing permafrost which made the ground shift around the tank.

That led some residents in the community of 86, located 440 kilometres southwest of Yellowknife, to call for the tanks to be moved onto solid ground, farther out of town.

"It's sitting on the muskeg, that area where they have those tank farms and the Northland Utilities power plant sitting there," resident Margaret Jumbo told CBC News on Thursday.

"It's on the edge of the muskeg, so it's liable to happen again in the future. We're talking about 10 years, maybe even 20 years down the road. You never know how safe it's going to be."

Fears for children's safety

By the time workers discovered and sealed the broken pipe on Tuesday afternoon, the diesel had spilled into the ground and made it as far as the lake.

Many residents of Trout Lake depend on the lake for fish and water. Jumbo said people also obtain some of their water from the snow around the lake.

"You know, little kids like that, they like to play in streams, especially when it's close by their houses," she said. "We're afraid that they might get that stuff into their mouths, so it's a concern."

But officials with the territorial Environment and Natural Resources department, which is monitoring the spill, said the community's drinking water is not at risk because it comes from a reservoir that's filled once a year from the bottom of the lake.

Crews have been working since Tuesday to clean up the spill. On Friday, workers plan to remove as much fuel as they can from the melted water around the community.

Northland Utilities has clean-up specialists on site, where they will be drilling holes into the lake ice to test the water for contamination.

"It will probably be a few days before we really have a good idea as to what the impacts are, what the levels of fuel into the soil [are] and to the extent of what's gotten into the lake," said Ray Case, the department's director of environmental protection.

Case added that any fuel that is not cleaned up should eventually evaporate.

The department will investigate the case to see how similar spills can be prevented in the future, he said.

No one from Northland Utilities was available Thursday to comment on the spill.