New company wants to stop northern permafrost slumps with special blanket

A new company that wants to stop permafrost slumps from further erosion says it’s growing its business after testing its product near Fort McPherson, N.W.T., this past summer. Former Tetlit Gwich’in chief James Ross and academic and entrepreneur Cansu Culha are co-founders of PermaC Land and Environment Inc. The company was incorporated in January and the team spent the summer putting their product — dubbed the “green blanket” — to the test.

“We went out and did the work and learned a lot,” said Ross, who describes the green blanket as a profitable way of healing the land. “Now I have a scientifically proven model of how we can effectively slow down and help these slumps.” The green blanket is made of biodegradable material that’s laid on top of a retrogressive thaw slump — a kind of landslide that happens when permafrost thaws. The idea is it traps cold in the ground and prevents heat from getting in, while also using a layer of seeds and cuttings to bring back native plants, to try and prevent the gouge in the ground from getting bigger.

Culha, who is an adjunct professor at the University of British Columbia, wouldn’t say what, exactly, the blanket was made of saying she had to protect the intellectual property of her company. However, she described it as being made of “wooded fibres” and other erosion control materials. And, she said, testing it out this summer was a success. Culha said her team deployed the green blanket on two retrogressive thaw slumps — one stable, the other growing — around 50 kilometres down the Dempster Highway from Fort McPherson in June.

The stable slump demonstrated the green blanket did not trigger erosion itself, she said. The other slump was partially covered to compare the difference between the two sides. Culha said the part of the slump that wasn’t covered retreated five metres, while the land that was covered stayed intact. At the edge of the blanket the land retreated less than one metre, something Culha said was expected because the land next to it was still eroding and exposed the side of the protected area to warm air.

Culha said a critical part of her solution is also reintroducing the “very protective” tundra vegetation. “We believe that the long-term solution is not necessarily to control erosion through these fibres, through these blankets. But rather, it's to bring in native plants that can naturally do the restoration of the lands.” The problem Steve Kokelj is a senior permafrost scientist at the Northwest Territories Geological Survey. Not only has he long studied the slump where PermaC has deployed its green blanket, but the company has consulted him on the project as well.

He says permafrost has different characteristics or personality, depending on its history. The Peel Plateau — where the product was tested — consists of permafrost that’s made up of leftover glacier, and is sometimes made up of 70 to 80 per cent ice, he said. That’s why when it thaws, the land slumps and settles. “A retrogressive thaw slump … they basically start to grow relatively small, when some sort of small erosion or a small landslide exposes the ice and the permafrost, and then that ice thaws in the summertime and the disturbance grows over time.”

Kokelj said a retrogressive thaw slump can “live” and continue to grow for decades. They can dump huge amounts of sediment into rivers and lakes. Ross said they also pose a risk to infrastructure, and harvesters who travel the land as well. David Kay, a Gwich’in harvester and sub-chief of the Tetlit Gwich’in Band Council, has seen evidence of this first-hand. Travelling through the mountains, he said he’s seen a lot of erosion alongside creeks and all over the land.

Though he hasn’t had any close calls himself, he’s heard of harvesters chasing animals by snowmobile who have narrowly avoided the steep drop of a slump that’s hard to see. ‘A prudent idea’ Culha said the intent of the green blanket is to stop that positive feedback loop that allows slumps to grow. “By protecting these slumps from growing further we’re protecting the infrastructure, we’re protecting the streams, the eco-system, as well as preventing the release of carbon, greenhouse gases such as methane, and CO2,” she explained.

In a warming North, Kokelj said the green blanket is a strategy worth pursuing. “The idea of an insulative blanket is, you know, it seems like a prudent idea. I think coupling that with other things like managing snow, managing drainage, I mean, these are all sort of innovations and ideas that we're going to have to use,” he said. However, the size of the slump upon which it's deployed will make a difference, he said. He said it would not be possible to stop erosion of a thaw slump that’s already displaced millions of cubic metres of material.

Where there’s likely to be success, he said, is on small disturbances that are just getting started. Kay described PermaC’s solution like a band-aid on the land. He’d like to see the green blanket deployed broadly on Gwich’in lands. “The land that we have out there is, you know, really unique and beautiful,” he said. “I really think this PermaC company is gonna help us heal the land … I hope it goes a long way.” Culha wouldn’t say whether PermaC had clients yet.

She said the company’s next steps are to think about commercialization and to grow its team.