The LLRWMO provides technical advice on the identification and management of
radium and other radioactive artifacts found on public and private properties
throughout Canada. Where necessary, the artifacts are characterized, removed and
stored at licensed LLRWMO sites. As the primary point of contact for technical
advice, the LLRWMO has responded to numerous inquiries from locations in Canada
and offshore.
The LLRWMO also recovers historic artifacts from industrial uses of radioactive
materials; such as static eliminators, radium-based smoke detectors, etc.
The majority of this work is part of a cooperative program with the CNSC to locate and collect inventories of materials containing radium.
Some samples of the LLRWMO’s activities are:
- Radium dials recovered from various locations in Canada were shipped to
the interim consolidation site in Toronto, to be characterized and prepared
for transfer to the licensed LLRWMO warehouses at the AECL’s Chalk River
site, Chalk River, ON.
- LLRWMO staff tested an area of the museum archives in the National
Aviation Museum (located in Ottawa, ON) from which radium dials had been
transferred to another off-site storage facility. The storage area showed no
evidence of any radioactive contamination, but radium-bearing dials and
instruments were discovered in other storage areas within the museum’s
archive.
- LLRWMO staff assisted in the donation of a private collection of uranium
ore samples from the Republic of Congo, Africa, to the Haileybury School of
Mines (located in Haileybury, ON) for research and display purposes.
