He is the regional superintendent for the North Slave Region. In the past few weeks his work place has suffered an attempted theft and a break-in of a company vehicle.

An attempted theft of gasoline left a potentially deadly spill of 4,000 litres of fuel behind on Jan. 31, just two weeks after someone stole one of the department's vehicles. The vehicle was later recovered in Yellowknife, Auger said. Both incidents occurred at the same location: at the Department of Transportation yard on Highway 3, across from the community of Edzo.

"I hope this is not a new trend here," Auger said on Monday, "that we're not becoming an easy target."

Emery Paquin, director of environmental protection for the GNWT, said it is "impossible" to know when the gasoline spill actually occurred. Police believe it happened Thursday night. There was no serious environmental harm caused by the spill, Auger said. The gasoline tanks are surrounded by concrete berms that prevent the fuel from leaking all over the ground when someone tampered with the valves, Auger said.

"The failure we experienced was man-made," Auger said.

There are two types of fuel on the site -- gasoline and diesel used by Dept. of Transportation's vehicles.

The fuel containers are locked to make sure nobody plays with the valves. Kids can't get in. But people who know what they want can.

"You have to go there with tools," Auger said. "You have to cut the lock. You have to come with the appropriate cutters. You cannot just get in there with bare hands."

With the clean-up complete, police say they can continue their investigation. So far, they have not connected the two incidents.