Radiological investigations of approximately 175 Port Hope road allowances and laneways will begin in October as part of the Port Hope Project Property Radiological Survey. No road closings are anticipated, and the work is expected to take approximately eight months to complete.
The fieldwork, conducted by Amec Foster Wheeler, involves gamma radiological scans on roadway surfaces. It will also include conventional land surveys to establish road boundaries and mark features, such as sidewalks, fences, manholes and hydro poles, on site drawings. Some utility locations – telephone, cable, gas, hydro, sewer and water – will be identified with water soluble paint or flags for up to 30 days prior to the work beginning.
An earlier gamma radiological survey was carried out on Port Hope road allowances in 2001 to identify potential locations of historic low-level radioactive waste, particularly along haul routes used by former Eldorado Nuclear trucks to transport contaminated soil to the Welcome Waste Management Facility. That survey identified approximately 175 road allowances and rights-of-way requiring further investigation, which is the subject of the current work. The results will be used to determine which road allowances require follow-up borehole drilling/ soil sampling for low-level radioactive waste, expected to take place in 2017.
