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YELLOWKNIFE, N.W.T. --The military plans to replace half of its personnel with contract workers at Canadian Forces Station Alert, a secretive spying outpost at the top of the world, by November.

"We do have excess infrastructure that we're maintaining right now," said Maj. Gioseph Anello, who is in charge of the Alert modernization project, a multi-year effort to shave the military's costs at the station.

"We have support people supporting support people, and we're really trying to get down to the most efficient organization."

This June, the military will open a bidding process for contractors to run the kitchen, accommodations, buildings and vehicles at the station, which is situated on northern Ellesmere Island, just 817 kilometres from the North Pole. It hopes the contract can begin by November, but Anello said neither the exact number of personnel cut nor the estimated savings will be clear until proposals are received.

With 72 full-time personnel who rotate in and out on six-month terms, Alert costs the military about $30 million a year to operate. Contractors could run the station for less by multi-tasking their employees, said Anello.

"As an example, the (contracted) driver of the truck can maintain that truck, off-load the truck and load the truck," he said. "In the military we would have the driver, a mechanic and a traffic guy."

The military also hopes to save on diesel fuel, which is flown in at great cost and used to power generators, by shutting down heat to some of the station's 90 buildings in winter.

Built as a High Arctic weather station in 1950, the military quickly seized on Alert's location near the top of the world _ and close to Russian naval operations _ as a prime place for electronic listening. At its apex during the Cold War, about 250 people lived at the station, most of them so-called "communications researchers" whose job it was to scan the airwaves for useful intelligence.

In 1996, computers replaced the spies, who were sent home when automated technology made it possible to send intercepted communications to Ottawa for processing. Today, only eight people work in the "ops room" at Alert's Hall, although they maintain the equipment rather than listen to it.

Those positions will remain at Alert, and intelligence experts said the planned changes will not affect the station's capabilities.

"You would want to have a handful of people up there who could make sure the automation stays automated," said Martin Rudner, who said the station is likely used to listen in on Iranian nuclear planning. "Whoever cooks breakfast is immaterial to that."

Still, other groups who use Alert say the changes might increase their costs. The station is home to a marquis Environment Canada facility that has for two decades monitored the atmosphere for pollutants and global warming gases. But researchers say they expect their program to continue, since the military is not planning to reduce the number of beds available at Alert.

"There might be some different logistical arrangements or maybe some more increased costs to travel and deal with the infrastructure up there," said Marjorie Shepherd, manager of air quality measurements and analysis for Environment Canada.

But, she said, since the military has no plans to reduce the number of beds at Alert, "we can expect a status quo research program."

Still, some critics have argued that reducing the number of military personnel at Alert will strike against Canada's Arctic sovereignty commitments.

"Having a presence at bases like Alert ... is important for us as Canadians," said Liberal defence critic Ujjal Dosanjh. "If this move in any way shape or form diminished our capacity there for security and surveillance, that's not appropriate."

Northern security expert Rob Huebert disagreed.

"The base is still a Canadian base. It doesn't matter if you're contracting out or not," he said.

And Rudner said Alert, which remains in a strategic position free of other electronic noise, will likely be maintained far into the future.

"It's seen Stalin, it's seen Khrushchev, Brezhnev, Gorbachev -- and now it sees Putin," he said. "And it will see, I think, a number of other people who are potential adversaries as well."