All systems are go for a twin environmental remediation project to tackle approximately two million cubic metres of low-level radioactive waste and contaminated soil around the Municipality of Port Hope and at the Port Granby Waste Management Facility in eastern Clarington.
Environmental engineering
All systems are go for a twin environmental remediation project to tackle approximately two million cubic metres of low-level radioactive waste and contaminated soil around Port Hope and at the Port Granby Waste Management Facility in Clarington.
The work will be done under the auspices of the Port Hope Area Initiative Management Office (PHAIMO), formed by Natural Resources Canada, Atomic Energy of Canada Limited (AECL) and Public Works and Government Services Canada (PWGSC).
The Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission approved the Port Granby and Port Hope projects under a five-year licence granted to AECL earlier this year. Construction of long-term waste management facilities in Port Hope and Port Granby is expected to begin in 2011.
The Port Hope project will involve relocating about 1.2 million cubic metres of low-level radioactive waste from the Welcome Waste Management Facility and other sites to a nearby engineered above-ground mound for long-term management. The Port Granby project involves relocating approximately 450,000 cubic metres of low-level radioactive waste from the Port Granby Waste Management Facility on the shore of Lake Ontario to an above-ground mound facility located approximately 350 metres north of the existing site. The cleanup and construction project is expected to take between six and eight years to complete.
The waste soil contains radium-226, uranium, arsenic and other contaminants, the byproducts of Eldorado Nuclear Limited, a former federal Crown Corporation that once refined radium and uranium.
“This will be largely a civil project,” says Christine Fahey, director of PHAIMO. “We’re excavating a lot of earth then moving it to the landfill facility where it will be deposited in layers.”
Fahey notes that the radioactivity of the soil is extremely low, comparable to normal background radiation in some communities. Government studies indicate that Port Hope has a lower background radiation level than Banff, Alta. for example, where people living on elevated terrain are exposed to more cosmic radiation.
The locations of most of the contaminated soil deposits are already well-known and mapped.
“Most of the contaminated soil was created years and years ago when environmental practices were far different from what they are today,” she says. “For example, roughly 110,000 cubic metres of soil were deposited as sediment in the bottom of a segregated turning basin in Port Hope Harbour, and that’s among the soil we’ll be removing.”
Joe Grossi, Major Projects Program Manager with the Ontario Region of PWGSC, says that RFPs for engineering services are well underway for both projects.
“It will take us about a year to finalize designs, so we hope to have the major contracts out in the summer of 2011,” he says.
The RFPs for the project specify that the final designs for the waste management facilities will be engineered mounds with clean ground cover of granular material as well as earthen or clay material, says Grossi. “They’ll have a leachate collection system and will involve the use of various membranes to ensure proper encapsulation and cover,” he says.
The project will also include the construction of storm and groundwater collection and treatment systems, roadway improvements and site restoration work. Environmental consultants will monitor the transportation of the soil and the construction process to ensure that no contaminated soil escapes during the active phase of the project, or during winter down-time.
The project will require an estimated seven to eight years to complete because it will be built in phases.
“Even the installation of the underlying liner membrane will be phased,” says Grossi. “The mound will be built in cells that will be filled and encapsulated as the contaminated soil arrives.”
Once established, the new facilities are designed to manage and monitor the contaminated soil for hundreds of years.
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