As the supply of electricity in the Yukon stabilizes, the Yukon River remains higher than normal after Sunday's need to spill water through the Whitehorse Rapids dam.

Yukon Energy is reporting that all nine back-up diesel generators put into service after the Aishihik hydro dam crashed have been turned off and Aishihik was working again this morning but not yet at full capacity, though on its way.

Reports from local residents indidated a noticeable rise in the river level Sunday afternoon, enough to cover the walkway along the river's edge below the Robert Campbell Bridge.

The high water, however, seems to also have stabilized, and that's good for Scott McDougall of the waterfront business The Kanoe People.

The water, said McDougall, is as high as he has seen it in a good number of years since the early 1990s, when an ice jam downriver caused flooding in his yard but even more extensive flooding in the Marwell area.

Yukon Energy spokeswoman Janet Patterson explained Monday and again today the Crown corporation responsible for power generation in the Yukon was forced to spill more water than usual during Sunday's prolonged blackout.

Two Aishihik hydro units went off line automatically to protect themselves after detecting an internal problem at the plant, Patterson explained.

The two Whitehorse turbines operating at the time also shut themselves down, as a measure of self-preservation against the sudden surge in demand that was detected.

As a result, water backing up behind the dam had to be spilled. That caused an unseasonal cascade of dislodged chunks of ice sent downriver, Ron Gee, Yukon Energy's resource manager, explained this morning.

'We pushed a lot of ice from our spillway downriver and it broke off ice from the shore, or border ice,' Gee said. 'And those two things pushed downstream and created a new ice front.

'That is probably why the downtown area and the Rotary Peace Park area are experiencing higher water levels because the ice front move downstream in front of those two locations.'

Gee said he doesn't expect the water to increase any further, as Yukon Energy prepares to reduce the amount of water coming through the Whitehorse Rapids dam as Aishihik comes back on line as the primary hydroelectric facility in the winter.

Patterson said the problem causing Sunday's massive blackout has been identified as the failure of one of nine cables that connect the turbines to a transformer at the Aishihik dam site in southwest Yukon.

It's expected a replacement cable will be in the territory in several days, she said.

Meanwhile, three of the four turbines in Whitehorse and the two Aishihik turbines were again supplying the entire Whitehorse-Aishihik-Faro grid.

Haines Junction was taken off its emergency back-up unit at noon Monday and Carmacks was taken off its back-up unit and returned to the grid this morning.

The City of Whitehorse also turned off its back-up generators at nine water pump and lift stations Monday afternoon, though the Canada Games Centre was requested to maintain energy conservation after it reopened Monday afternoon.

The electricity went out at 1:32 p.m. across the entire WAF grid. While some sections of Whitehorse were restored in three hours, some continued without power for up to seven hours or longer, amid frigid temperatures.

The situation has raised questions about the ability of emergency response organizations to handle this type of emergency.

Yukon government spokesman Doug Caldwell maintains the emergency response was activated Sunday, and matters were being monitored.