Jorge Barrera
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Sep 19/01) - Office workers at the Laing Building returned to work Tuesday after fears of asbestos contamination shut down their building Monday.

Work on the fifth floor of the Laing Building was brought to a halt with the discovery of asbestos in floor tiles. - Jorge Barrera/NNSL photo

The territory's Department of Public Works shut down the building after lab samples from tiles found in the building during renovations suggested dangerously high levels of asbestos may be present in the air.

Surface and air quality tests came back negative late Monday evening from a laboratory in Edmonton.

"The (Workers' Compensation Board) procedures are currently in place," said Mike Burns, regional superintendent for the territorial Department of Public Works.

According to Gordon Becket, chief safety officer with the WCB, a safety inspector visited the building along with Wilf's Renovations, a Yellowknife specialist in asbestos cleanup who takes care of the tiles.

Only the fifth floor needed cleaning up.

On Friday, construction workers tore up the carpet and found tiles while renovating the fifth floor. The department sent samples to an Edmonton lab which returned them on Saturday with high asbestos readings.

Burns said tiles found in buildings built before the 1970s usually contain asbestos.

The Laing was built in phases beginning in the late 1960s and ending in the early 1970s, said Burns.

The building houses the territorial government's Department of the Executive and the Financial Management Board along with Liberal MP Ethel Blondin-Andrew's constituency office.

"This is normal procedure," said Burns of the shut-down. "We have to demonstrate the cleanup did not cause problems."