The financially and environmentally troubled Snap Lake diamond mine, in Canada, De Beers’ first to come into production outside Africa, has never turned a profit in its seven years of existence. With diamond prices down and the 12-year-life mine experiencing water problems, De Beers last Friday decided to snap it off its increasingly stark-looking diamond tree. The Northwest Territories arctic operation is retrenching 434 of its 747 workers as it goes into care-and-maintenance mode. Snap Lake last year produced 1.2-million carats as Canada’s first primary underground diamond mine and was needing an amendment to its water licence as it has been storing large volumes of water underground for some time.