Yellowknife (Dec 20/06) - Last Thursday two new pumps began re-routing the water around the dam at the B-2 mining pit at the Giant Mine site.

Bill Mitchell, Giant Mine clean-up co-ordinator for Indian and Northern Affairs Canada said work is set to begin in February 2007 to fix the dam which has been a problem for the last few years. "We've had leaking and we want to avoid it becoming a problem in the future," said Mitchell.

Mitchell said a temporary dam will be installed upstream to route the water around the dam.

As the creek level has been rising, crews needed bigger pumps to control the water.

Last July Mitchell warned that "quite large releases of arsenic" from underground storage chambers could contaminate Yellowknife Bay should the Baker Creek bed collapse and flood the caverns where 17,000 tonnes of arsenic trioxide is stored.

Work was completed over the summer to re-route the creek.

The work on the B-2 pit dam is unrelated.