PHAI work in the Highland Drive area involves the cleanup of six sites; the Highland Drive Landfill, the Pine Street North Extension Roadbed, the Pine Street North Extension Consolidation Site, the Pine Street North Extension Temporary Storage Sites, the Highland Drive Roadbed and the Highland Drive South Ravine.
Historic low-level radioactive waste from these sites will be transported to the Port Hope Long-Term Waste Management Facility (LTWMF) where it will be stored for hundreds of years into the future.
The early remediation design plans envisioned the combination of several of these sites under one cleanup contract. The complexity of cleaning up the landfill however, resulted in a remediation approach that separated the sites. By severing the Pine Street North Extension Consolidation Site (PSNE CS) from the Highland Drive Landfill it allowed CNL to advance work in that area.
Pine Street North Extension Consolidation Site – Currently under remediation.
Waste from various Port Hope sites temporarily stored in a containment mound at this site is currently being excavated and transported to the LTWMF via the trucking route that exits on to Cavan Street. This work is expected to be completed by spring 2022.
In order to facilitate the cleanup of the sites as well as to accommodate the volume of truck traffic, the internal haul road was upgraded. In addition, early works included the construction of a new site access road (from Pine Street) and a laydown area for site trailers and worker parking. These upgrades will remain in place throughout the duration of the remediation work in the Highland Drive area, after which they will be removed and the area reinstated to pre-construction conditions.
Highland Drive Landfill
The Highland Drive Landfill, located behind the Jack Burger Sports Complex houses 51,900 m3 of low-level radioactive waste co-mingled or overlain by municipal solid waste.
It was operated as a municipal landfill that accepted waste from the mid to late 1940s until it was closed in 1991. Several remediation methods have been considered and the current design involves a rolling excavation approach.
Using this methodology, low-level radioactive waste and co-mingled municipal solid waste will be removed in a staged excavation and backfilling sequence. This will assist with the limited areas for material staging as well as odour management.
An Environmental Compliance Approval (ECA) is needed from the Ministry of the Environment Conservation and Parks in order to proceed with this remediation work. CNL is in the process of completing and submitting this application. This process includes presentations to the owners of the landfill: the Municipality of Port Hope and the County of Northumberland, to provide information on the proposed remediation work and timeframe for completion.
Pine Street North Extension Roadbed
The remediation of this site will be included in the cleanup of the Highland Drive Landfill site. Additional sites will be completed over the next few years, as soon as design plans with property owners have been determined.
