Name and Location
Port Granby low-level radioactive waste management facility project, Ontario, Canada.
Client
The Port Hope Area Initiative (PHAI) is a federal environmental clean-up programme. Its mandate is the remediation and local, long-term, safe management of historic low-level radioactive waste in Port Hope and the Port Granby area of south-east Clarington. The PHAI management office, led by Canadian Nuclear Laboratories, is implementing these projects on behalf of Atomic Energy of Canada, a federal Crown corporation.
Project Description
The project involves the relocation of an estimated 450 000 m3 of historic low-level radioactive waste, located at an existing site on the shoreline of Lake Ontario, in Southeast Clarington, to a new, engineered above-ground mound facility being built about 700 m north of the lake.
Monitoring systems will be installed within the mound and around the perimeter of the long-term waste management facility site. Low-level radioactive waste and contaminated soils will be excavated from the existing site and transported safely to the new facility using a dedicated internal road. An underpass will be built under Lakeshore road so that no waste is transported on public roadways.
Other important project components include a wastewater treatment plant and roadway improvements.
Through community involvement, a naturalised landscape end-use design has been developed for the long-term waste management facility and the restored, existing facility.
Ongoing maintenance and monitoring will continue for hundreds of years after the facility has been capped and closed. The historic waste resulted from radium- and uranium-refining operations of the former Crown Corporation Eldorado Nuclear and its private–sector predecessors, which operated from the 1930s to 1988.
Value
The project cost is estimated at C$86.8-million.
Duration
Construction of the engineered above-ground mound and remediation of the existing waste site, with transportation and emplacement of the waste in the new facility, are expected to take five to six years.
Latest Developments
Amec Foster Wheeler started of work on the Port Granby project in May.
The scope of work includes facility construction, waste excavation, construction of a roadway to permit transportation of the excavated material without using municipal roads, and restoration of the existing and new facility sites.
Key Contracts and Suppliers
Amec Foster Wheeler
On Budget and on Time?
Not stated.
Contact Details for Project Information
PHAI, tel +1 905 885 0291, fax +1 905 885 9344 email info@phai.ca.
Amec Foster Wheeler media relations manager – Americas Lauren Gallagher, tel +1 602 757 3211 or email lauren.gallagher@amecfw.com