The Port Hope Project in Ontario, Canada, has begun moving radioactively contaminated soil from a decades-old storage facility in the municipality into a new above-ground engineered mound for long-term disposal.
The Port Hope Area Initiative (PHAI) completed the first cell of the new disposal facility in late November and began trucking in waste from the Welcome Waste Management Facility on Dec. 1, according to a Dec. 7 press release from the Canadian Nuclear Laboratories program.
The legacy facility, which opened in 1944, holds roughly 450,000 cubic meters of soil contaminated by decades of radium and uranium refining in the municipality during the early to mid-20th century. It is within the PHAI waste management complex at Port Hope.
There was no word this week regarding how much soil had been transferred to the adjacent new storage facility in the initial days of transport. The waste relocation is scheduled for completion by the end of 2020.
In total, 1.2 million cubic meters of contaminated soil and historic low-level radioactive waste from the waste management site and the broader Port Hope community will be stored in the four cells of the new disposal structure. Contractor ECC/Quantum Murray holds two contracts worth $115 million CAD ($89.7 million U.S) to build the four cells by the end of 2019, and is also charged with the on-site waste transfer.
Environmental remediation of other locations in the municipality along Lake Ontario is due to begin in 2018, the release says. The initial off-site waste to be relocated will come from three interim storage locations in Port Hope, according to PHAI: material presently under tarps on the Center Pier (17,000 cubic meters), near a sewage treatment facility (2,200 cubic meters), and at the Pine Street North Extension (12,000 cubic meters). Amec Foster Wheeler is handling the off-site waste transfer under a contract worth $2.5 million CAD ($1.94 million).
“The start of cleanup of waste from sites within the Municipality of Port Hope early next year will represent a major milestone for the PHAI and the community,” Bryan Tyers, director of project delivery at the Port Hope Area Initiative, said by email. “Transportation of the waste from within the community will happen concurrently with the ongoing transfer of on-site waste and the construction of additional cells of the engineered aboveground mound.”
The Port Hope Project is also conducting radiological surveys of roughly 4,800 properties. Waste has been found on nearly 600 sites, and about 800 properties are expected to need some form of cleanup, Tyers said. Discussions are beginning with 160 homeowners regarding future environmental remediation.
The Port Hope Project is the larger of two endeavors that comprise the Port Hope Area Initiative. The Port Granby Project involves a separate above-ground engineered mound to hold 450,000 cubic meters of contaminated soil and low-level radioactive waste. More than half of the waste has already been transferred into the facility from legacy storage, Tyers said.
The Port Granby Project is scheduled for completion in 2020, followed by the Port Hope Project three years later.
In all, the Port Hope Area Initiative expects to spend $1.28 billion CAD (just under $1 billion U.S.) over a decade on Phase 2 of the project, encompassing planning and engineering, procurement, construction, environmental monitoring, radiological investigations, site remediation and restoration, and other activities.
