The Canadian Nuclear Laboratories on Friday announced the full transfer of radioactively contaminated soil from three locations in Port Hope, Ontario, into a long-term storage facility.
The project – covering the Pine Street North Extension, the Municipal Sewage Treatment Plant, and Center Pier – is one part of a much broader environmental remediation of low-level radioactive waste in the municipalities of Port Hope and Clarington. Both municipalities were widely contaminated by uranium and radium refining in Port Hope from 1933 to 1988.
In total, the Port Hope Area Initiative is expected to cost $1.3 billion CAD ($976 million) and to be completed around 2025.
Amec Foster Wheeler was the contractor for the soil relocation, beginning work in July 2018 under a contract worth $2.6 million CAD ($1.9 million). The material is now being held in the Long-Term Waste Management Facility (LTWMF) at Port Hope.
“After years of meticulous planning, it’s very rewarding for the local community and our staff as we continue to restore the lands in Port Hope,” Scott Parnell, general manager of Canadian Nuclear Laboratories’ Historic Waste Program Management Office, said in a press release. “With these three locations complete, CNL has transported over 80,000 tonnes of waste to the LTWMF, where it will be safely isolated from the environment in an engineered containment mound. The LTWMF was requested by the local community and is the first facility of its kind in Canada, and its construction and operation will inform the design of a waste facility being proposed at CNL’s Chalk River Laboratories campus.”
Canadian Nuclear Laboratories is a science and technology operated by the Canadian National Energy Alliance (CNEA), a consortium of Jacobs, Fluor, and SNC-Lavalin.
