The Port Granby Project proposes to relocate approximately 500,000 cubic metres of low-level radioactive waste and marginally contaminated soils to a new aboveground mound facility for safe long-term management. The waste from the former Eldorado Nuclear operation in Port Hope is currently located on a lakeshore site at the south-eastern boundary of the Municipality of Clarington. The facility has been closed since 1988 and is maintained and monitored. The proposed site is situated on stable till 700 metres away from the steep bluffs, receding shoreline and sandy soils that characterize the existing waste site.

Developing the Port Granby solution

Detailed and comprehensive studies to select the best solution to southeast Clarington’s historic waste management problems began in 2002 with the launch of the Environmental Assessment for the Port Granby Project. On the table was a concept proposed in 1999 by the Municipality and its council-appointed citizens committee. The concept called for on-site management of most of the waste, with only the waste located at the East Gorge to be excavated and relocated to an aboveground mound to be built on site. This and two other concepts were compared in the initial stage of the Environmental Assessment process. After two years of detailed environmental and technical studies and extensive public consultation, the Low-Level Radioactive Waste Management Office and the Municipal Council of Clarington agreed to proceed with an alternative option that would relocate all of the waste to a new site away from Lake Ontario.

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