All field work was halted Wednesday at a large-scale cleanup project for radioactive contaminants spread across two municipalities in Ontario, Canada, in response to the global COVID-19 pandemic.
In a late-morning Tweet, Canadian Nuclear Laboratories said it had suspended field operations at the Port Hope Project and Port Granby Project, which are managed jointly under the Port Hope Area Initiative. “All sites are being placed in a safe state & essential activities related to water management & site security will continue,” the announcement states.
The Port Hope Area Initiative also closed its main office and temporarily cut off direct meetings with contractors, property owners, and the public, according to a separate statement. Staff will work remotely.
The Canadian Nuclear Laboratories, meanwhile, said it had not been made aware of any confirmed or likely cases of novel coronavirus 2019 disease across its locations. But the nuclear science and technology organization is reducing operations at all facilities through April 6.
The Port Hope Area Initiative is a $1.3 billion CAD ($894.5 million USD) project of soil removal and other remediation activities for low-level radioactive waste contamination in the municipalities of Port Hope and Clarington. The contamination is the byproduct of uranium and radium refining in Port Hope from 1933 to 1988.
The project is currently scheduled to wrap up around 2025.
As of Friday morning, there were 873 confirmed cases of the COVID-19 respiratory disease in Canada and 12 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University. Two of the deaths were in Ontario, according to the university’s database.
Port Hope Area Initiative operations had been ramping up for the 2020 construction season in Ontario, spokesman Bill Daly said by email Wednesday. Work that is now on indefinite pause includes: dredging contaminated sediment in Port Hope Harbor; preparations for waste excavation near the Center Pier; radiological testing and cleanup of residential properties; and transport of contaminated material to waste management facilities.
More than 220 Canadian Nuclear Laboratories staffers work on the project, in office and field positions.
“The suspension of field work primarily involves contractors and their sub-contractors who perform PHAI cleanup activities on behalf of CNL,” Daly wrote. “These contractors have also been making work adjustments in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.”
Some environmental and radiation protection monitoring will continue, as will operation of “mission critical” waste water treatment plants for two Long-Term Waste Management Facilities, one for Port Hope and one for Port Granby, the according to the spokesman. Those operations will involve roughly 30 employees.
Daly did not say how the interruption might impact the cost and schedule for the Port Hope Area Initiative. “The situation is being carefully monitored and decisions will be made on the resumption of normal business operations based on the evolving conditions and available information from federal and provincial authorities.”
This might be the first full interruption to a radioactive waste cleanup program, though agencies around the world are feeling the impact of the spread of the coronavirus.
Canada’s Nuclear Waste Management Organization, which is developing a deep geologic repository for spent fuel from nuclear power plants, will close its main office in Toronto as of today, a spokesman said. Personnel are being asked to work remotely through April 3, and three community offices have been closed.
The U.S. Energy Department’s Office of Environmental Management, which oversees remediation of 16 nuclear-weapon sites around the country, was maintaining operations this week while enhancing safety measures. Ahandful of workers were being tested for infection – two who attended an industry conference last week in Phoenix, and several at the Hanford Site in Washington state. No cases had been confirmed.
At the Sellafield nuclear site in the United Kingdom, the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority planned as of Tuesday to soon temporarily shut down the Magnox fuel reprocessing facility.
“The Government’s evolving response means we must now scale back some operations to make best use of available people,” government-owned site operator Sellafield Ltd. said in a March 17 notice. “This allow us to keep a focus on delivering high hazard risk reduction activities.”
Roughly 1,000 Sellafield personnel were self-isolating as of Wednesday, the BBC reported. They represented 8% of total staffing at the Cumbria nuclear cleanu and reprocessing complex.
