Pangnirtung (Aug 21/06) - Stand on any hill overlooking Iqaluit during the summer and you'll see a huge cloud of dust wafting up from the airport and the downtown core.

In Pangnirtung, dust kicked up by jets taking off from that hamlet's gravel runway can actually halt traffic on an adjacent road.

"It's bad," said Pangnirtung's senior administrator Greg Morash. "When they take off...you have to stop your vehicle because you can't see down the hill."

So the Government of Nunavut's airports division is rolling out the use of a high-tech polymer binding agent to help clear the air in Pangnirtung.

The product is called EK-35, and it's used instead of salty calcium chloride.

"We can't put salt around aircraft," said Don Miller, the manager of operations and standards for Nunavut's airports. "That's just a no-no."

The thick brown liquid manufactured by an Ohio company isn't especially dangerous and doesn't cause environmental damage. But it is expensive.

"You want to make sure it's effective before ordering lots of it," Miller said. The airports division of the department of Economic Development and Transportation tested EK-35 at the Baker Lake airport last year with positive results.

"What was a gigantic problem is just gone," Miller said.

There aren't any immediate plans to use EK-35 at other Nunavut airports due to "technical constraints about where you can use EK-35," Miller said.

"We have other options and possible solutions for other sites."

Morash said work spreading EK-35 on the runway will start this week and should be finished by the end of September.