Port Hope Area Initiative
Historic Low-Level
Radioactive Waste
Roughly
two million cubic metres of low-level radioactive waste and contaminated
soil are located at various sites in the Municipality of Port Hope and
at
the Port Granby Waste Management Facility in eastern Clarington.
These
low-level radioactive waste materials are a consequence of past practices
involving the refining of radium and uranium by a federal Crown Corporation,
Eldorado Nuclear Limited, and its private sector predecessors. The waste materials contain radium-226, uranium and arsenic in various
proportions.
Most of the waste is
located at the Port Granby Waste Management Facility in Clarington and the
Welcome Waste Management Facility in the Municipality of Port Hope. These
facilities are owned by Cameco Corporation and are licensed by the Canadian
Nuclear Safety Commission.
Historic
waste is also found in various locations in the Municipality of Port Hope. Low-level
radioactive waste sites in Port Hope are monitored and inspected regularly
to ensure that they do not pose a risk to health or the environment.
Cleanups
and Community Solutions
From
1975 to 1982, the Atomic Energy Control Board (AECB), now the Canadian
Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC), carried out a cleanup of developed
residential, public and commercial properties in Port Hope on behalf of the
Federal-Provincial Task Force on Radioactivity. Since then the LLRWMO has
conducted further investigations, cleanups and consolidations.
In
1988, the federal government initiated an Ontario-wide cooperative siting
process to seek a volunteer host community for the Port Hope area wastes. No
agreement with a volunteer host community was reached. Subsequently, in 1997
and 1998, the three area municipalities – the then Township of Hope and
Town of Port Hope and the Municipality of Clarington - initiated a process
to consider local solutions to the long-term management of wastes within
their communities. Each municipal council established a local advisory
committee to develop concept-level designs for potential long-term
management options. These community recommendations formed the foundation
for the Port Hope Area Initiative.
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