by Nancy Gardiner
Northern News Services

NNSL (Feb 10/97) - The staging area for transportation shipments on the winter road to the Lupin and BHP mines is bulging with cement bags.

Altogether, there are 300 shipments of cement ready to go. "That makes up about half of our order still to go up to the mine sites for backfill and expansion projects," says Thor Lenz, dispatcher for Nuna Logistics in Yellowknife.

There are about five trucks going steady between Hay River and Yellowknife bringing up the cement, six days a week. Inland Cement of Hay River is the supplier.

Nuna Logistics also handles some freight for the projects, but it's not stored in Yellowknife, it's just trucked directly to the sites.

"We're just starting out -- the weights have been so low," he said referring to the ice road capacity.

Milder temperatures this year caused a late start, but "we're still on schedule with everything," says Lenz.

Last year, winter snowstorms caused a late start to the winter road season, he added.

The maximum speed limits for the big trucks on the winter ice road is 30 km/hour. It's a 643-km drive to Lupin and about 330-km drive to BHP's Koala Camp.

It normally takes drivers two to two-and-a-half days to complete the loop back to Yellowknife, says Lenz.

The truckers receive regular updates on the winter road conditions or closures from Echo Bay mines, says Lenz.