A Canadian federal cleanup program on Tuesday began moving 450,000 cubic meters of low-level radioactive waste away from the shoreline of Lake Ontario.
The first truck shipments are underway from an existing facility to the new Port Granby Project Long-Term Waste Management Facility, an engineered above-ground mound roughly 700 meters from the lake.
Excavation and transport of the waste is expected to take about three years, with the new site filled and capped off by 2021, said Bill Daly, spokesman for the Port Hope Area Initiative. The entire project is expected to cost $283 million (CAN), which encompasses $90 million for the new facility and waste excavation and $20 million for roadway upgrades, among other expenses.
The low-level waste and marginally contaminated soil is the byproduct of radium and uranium operations at Eldorado Nuclear refinery in nearby Port Hope. Waste was placed in the shore-area facility from 1955 to 1988.
The Port Granby Project is part of the broader Port Hope Area Initiative, which also involves cleanup and long-term storage of 1.2 million cubic meters of low-level radioactive waste now stored at multiple locations in the municipality of Port Hope. The material also resulted from Eldorado Nuclear operations.
The full price tag for cleanup and construction of the initiative’s two projects is $1.28 billion (CAN).
