Options for the Port Hope Harbour: An Analysis of the Port Hope Harbour Remedial Action Plan
2.2 Eldorado Resources Ltd. and Cameco
2.3 The Contamination of the Harbour
3.0 THE PORT HOPE HARBOUR REMEDIAL ACTION PLAN (RAP)
3.1 Environmental Conditions in Port Hope Harbour
3.2 Use Impairments in the Harbour
3.3 The Siting Task Force on Low-Level Radioactive Waste Disposal
3.4 Who is Involved in the Port Hope Harbour RAP?
3.5 Options for the Port Hope Harbour
3.5.1. Cleaning up the Harbour
4.0 REDEVELOPMENT OF THE PORT HOPE WATERFRONT
5.0 CONCLUSIONS
APPENDIX C: The Nature of Radioactivity and Radiation
APPENDIX D: Photographs of the Site
Bibliography
List of People Interviewed
Map 2: The Present Configuration of Port Hope Harbour
Map 3: Port Hope Harbour Site Plan
Map 4: Areas of Concern in the Great Lakes Basin
Figure 1: Who is Involved in the Port Hope RAP?
Figure 2: Harbour Cleanup Conceptual Design: Option (1) - De-watered
Figure 3: Harbour Cleanup Conceptual Designs: Options (2), (3), and (4) - Dredging
Table 1: Summary of the 4 Cleanup Options
Map 5: Harbour Disposal Concept
Figure 4: Harbour Disposal Concept
AECB: Atomic Energy Control Board
AECL: Atomic Energy of Canada Limited
CLG: Port Hope Community Liaison Group
EAC: Port Hope Environmental Advisory Committee
GLIN: Great Lakes Information Network
GLWQA: Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement
IJC: International Joint Commmission
LAG: Port Hope Local Advisory Group
LLRWMO: Low-Level Radioactive Waste Management Office
OMOE: Ontario Ministry of the Environment
PHHC: Port Hope Harbour Commission
PHYC: Port Hope Yacht Club
RAP: Remedial Action Plan
SMDC: Saskatchewan Mining Development Corporation
It is the purpose of this document to examine options for the Port Hope Harbour. The main problem is that the harbour sediments are contaminated with radium and thorium series radionuclides, heavy metals and PCBs. A number of conflicts have occurred with respect to what action should be taken to improve the Port Hope waterfront. This paper will assess the interests of the stakeholders and make recommendations based on the context of what is best for the vitality of the Town of Port Hope.
It is the purpose of this documnent to analyze options for the Port Hope Harbour. The main problem is that approximately 90,000 cubic metres of sediments in the turning basin and west slip are contaminated with radium and thorium series radionuclides, heavy metals, and PCBs. If the harbour is to remain operative as a small craft harbour, the contaminated sediments will have to be removed and transferred to a federally licensed low-level radioactive waste disposal facility. An operational low-level radioactive waste facility is unlikely to be sited until the late 1990s at the earliest.
There are other options for the Port Hope waterfront, however, that have yet to be appropriately addressed. The most viable such option is the capping of the harbour and its conversion into a park. Such a move would allow the harbour to more appropriately fit into Port Hope's plans for the redevelopent of its waterfront. Conflicting ideas with respect to a remedial action plan for Port Hope Harbour have arisen as a result of the different proposals.
This paper will examine the appropriateness of a variety of options and recommend ways in which the remedial action plan process for Port Hope Harbour can be streamlined and improved. The methodology involved in completing this paper included a review of available literature followed up by a number of intervies. The intersets of all stakeholders are assessed and will be considered within the future vitality of Port Hope.
The Port Hope Harbour is located at the mouth of the Ganaraska River on the north shore of Lake Ontario, approximately 100 kilometres east of Toronto. In the last century, Port Hope Harbour was considered to be a major Great Lakes port. Port Hope was constituted as a port of entry as early as 1819, but no effort was made to secure harbour and wharf accommodation until the formation of the Port Hope Harbour and Wharf Company in March 20, 1829. The harbour and its related facilities were sold to the Town of Port Hope by the shareholders of the Port Hope Harbour and Wharf Company in 1852. In 1864, however, the Port Hope, Lindsay and Beaverton Railway Company purchased the harbour. Title to the harbour was eventually transferred to the federal government in small parcels. Today, the Port Hope Harbour is owned and administered by the Small Craft Harbours branch of the Federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans. Small portions of the harbour are leased to the Port Hope Harbour Commission (PHHC) and Cameco, a uranium refinery.
The harbor initially consisted of two 4 metre deep piers running out into the lake. It was eventually reconstructed to include a turning basin, approach channel, and protective breakwaters during the latter part of the 19th century (see Map 1). The harbour did not attain its current formation until 1953. Presently, the harbour is enclosed to the east by a concrete armoured pier and breakwater that runs for a distance of 480 metres offshore from the foot of Mill Street. The west side of the channel is protected by a second 120 metre breakwater that runs south of the Queen's Wharf. The enterance is 60 metres wide and is marked by a 6 metre high light at the tip of the east breakwater. In general, it may be stated that the harbour consists of four main elements:
Source: Craick, 1901
Source: Canada-Ontario Agreement Respecting Great Lakes Water Quality, July, 1989.
Today, the harbour no longer receives commercial traffic. The Turning Basin now serves as a boat mooring facility fo the Port Hope Yacht Club (PHYC) with boat launching and fuelling facilities supplied by a marina on the lower Ganaraska River. Cameco (formerly Eldorado Resources Ltd.) has production facilities located on the western edge of the turning basin and west slip and warehousing on the eastern edge. Cameco also withdraws process and cooling waters from the southern end of the west slip and discharges effluent along the western side of the turning basin and west slip (see Map 3)
Source: Canada-Ontario Agreement Respecting Great Lakes Water Quality, Fall, 1989.
Cameco was founded in 1988 by the merger of the Saskatchewan Mining Development Corporation (SMDC), a provincial crown corporation, and Eldorado Nuclear Ltd., a federal crown corporation. Cameco's federal predecessor was originally a private gold company created by two Canadian prospectors, brothers Charlie and Gilbert LaBine, in January, 1926. The discovery of pitchblende four years later by Gilbert LaBine at Great Bear Lake in the Northwest Territories changed the focus of Eldorado Gold Mines Ltd. to uranium. This led to the establishment of Canada's first uranium mine in 1932 at Port Radium near Great Bear Lake. The following year, a plant at Port Hope opened to extract the radium which by that time was valued for its effects as a cancer treatment. The plant was located in southern Ontario because the chemicals needed to extract radium from the ore were available locally. (It took 7 tons of chemicals to process 1 ton of ore). Port Hope was chosen because industrial space was available in close proximity to a major water body (Lake Ontario); at that time (and now), most chemical processingindustries required large volumes of water for cooling purposes.
The discovery of nuclear fission in 1939 and uranium's potential in the production of atomic weapons signalled a turning point in Elorado's history. In 1942, the plan was converted for uranium production. By 1944, the Canadian government had purchased all of the company's shares in a strategic war-time move to control Canada's only source of uranium. For the next 20 years, uranium mining and refining for weapons production continued to play an important role. In 1965, however, Canada banned the sale and export of uranium for nuclear weapons purposes and uranium sales have since been focused on the electricity markets which had begun to be developed a decade earlier.
In addition, during the post-war period, radium as a cancer treatment was phased out and by 1953, all radium refining ceased at Port Hope. The radium circuit was dismantled and replaced in 1955 by a uranium refining circuit which processed uranium concentrates rather than uranium ores. This transition represented a turning point in waste management at Port Hope because most of the impurities in the ore (including arsenic and more than 99% of its radioactive elements other than uranium) would in future be separated and removed at the mine site. In 1958, the Port Hope plant began producing UO2 powder for Canada's CANDU heavy-water reactors, and in 1970 it expanded to include conversion to UF6 for export, enrichment and ultimate use in foreign light-water nuclear power plants. Cameco's UF6 plant is one of only five in the Western World; there are two in the United States, one in the United Kingdom, and one in France.
Although the Port Hope operation's main functions are the conversion of UO3 (received from the Blind River refinery) to either UF6 or UO2, the site also includes two smaller operations, one producing depleted uranium metal products and the other, a specialized type of perfluorocarbon (which is marketed for vapour phase soldering of electronic circuit boards). Metal products include specialized casting for counterweights and shielding used in the aerospace industry. Internal recycling in the plant greatly reduces air and water emissions, solid wastes, and chemical consumption; included are systems to recycle and recover uranium, nitric acid, and hydrogen fluoride.
Approximately 90,000 cubic metres of sediment located in the Turning Basin and West Slip are contaminated by uranium and thorium series radionuclides, heavy metals, and PCBs. Contamination is believed to be primarily the result of waste management practices associated with radium and uranium refining operations in the Town of Port Hope from 1933 to 1948.
Between 1933 and 1948, refinery wastes were stockpiled at a number of locations within the Town of Port Hope, including an area immediately adjacent to the Turning Basin. Migration of contaminants from these stockpiles is thought to be the principal source of contaminants found in the Turning Basin sediments. Sediment dating techniques have shown that the main concentrations of contaminants are present in the sediments deposited prior to 1948. The accumulation of contminants has probably continued through surface runoff, plant process upsets and water discharge, and possibly groundwater movement, to the present time.
The sediments in the harbour Turning Basin overlie uncontaminated sediments and bedrock to an average depth of about 2 metres and are covered by over 2 metres of water. The Turning Basin sediments contain about 95% of the total contaminants in the harbour with the heaviest concentrations occurring one-half metre below the current sediment surface. The remaining 5% of the contaminant inventory is in the sediments of the approach channel (West Slip) to the Turning Basin. As a result of dredging operations, the one to two metre depth of contaminated sediments in this area are covered by about an equally thick layer of more recent sediments containing much lower concentrations of contaminants. The sediments themselves are comprised of a fine, loose silty material completely saturated with water. Contaminant infiltration has not occurred below the original harbour bottom which is comprised of a reasonably hard till or bedrock.
Public Works Canada records indicate that the last dredging work in the Turning Basin was completed in 1925. There is no evidence, therefore, that contaminated sediments have been removed. It has been reported, however, that refinery wastes deposited in the Turning Basin were removed at some point in the past; there are no records available to confirm the extent or nature of this removal. The West Slip, lower Ganaraska River, and out harbour regions have been subject to at least 39 separate maintenance dredging programmes (most recently in 1979) since the commissioning of the refinery.
Due to the radionuclide content of the contaminated sediments in the harbour, the sediments have been designated by the federal government as historic low-level radioactive wastes. Historic low-level radioactive wastes are the responsibility of the federal government.
If the harbour is to remain operative as a small craft harbour, the contaminated sediments will have to be removed from the Turning Basin and West Slip. The contaminated material, however, must be placed in a low-level radioactive waste management facility licensed by the Atomic Energy Control Board (AECB). There is no such facility presently available to receive the volume of material which would result from dredging the Turning Basin and West Slip. Additionally, an operational waste disposal facility capable of receiving sediments from the Port Hope Harbour cannot not be realistically anticipated prior to 1995.
The Port Hope Harbour has been identified as an Area of Concern by the Great Lakes Water Quality Board on the basis of sediment contamination. As defined in the 1987 amendments to the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement (GLWQA), an "Area of Concern means a geographic area that fails to meet the General and Specific Objectives of the Agreement where such a failure has caused or is likely to cause impairment of beneficial use or of the area's ability to support aquatic life".1 The International Joint Commission (IJC) now lists 42 areas of concern, 17 of which are on the Canadian side of the Great Lakes or are shared with the United States (see Map 4). The 1987 amendment to the GLWQA specified, among other things, the preparation of RAPs for designated areas of concern. In the end, a RAP incorporates an analysis of existing environmental conditions, existing and potential remedial measures, definitions of impaired uses and their causes, and an action plan to meet the specific objectives for water quality. Considered from an economic perspective, th implementation of RAPs typically involves the expenditure of significant resources in order to put the remedial measures in place. A more complete discussion regarding the history an purpose of the IJC, GLWQA, and RAPs can be found in Appendix A.
Source: GLIN, n.d.
The levels of most contaminants in the Port Hope Harbour meet Ontario's Provincial Water Quality Objectives and Guidelines. One contaminant which does not meet the Objectives and Guidelines is phosporus. It should be realized, however, that problem conditions associated with phosphorus have not been identified in Port Hope Harbour
Studied indicate that the benthic community in the Port Hope Harbour is stressed. The organisms found living in the sediments of the Turning Basin and West Slip are predominantly aquatic worms of a type normally found in polluted harbours and nearshore sediments in other areas of Lake Ontario. This adverse impact may be the result of contamination found in the harbour sediments, but it may also be the result of other physical factors such as low dissolved oxygen in the harbour.
Several species of fish caught in the Turning Basin were analyzed for radionuclide concentrations. Two bottom-feeding species, Brown Bullhead Catfish and Yellow Perch, were found to have levels of radionuclides which were slightly higher than levels found in the same species elsewhere in Lake Ontario. All other species had levels which were similar to those found in other parts of the lake. All species (including Brown Bullhead Catfish and Yellow Perch) had radionuclide levels which were at an acceptable level for human consumption. Additionally, radionuclide levels found in the fish tissues themselves were considerably below those values reported as causing adverse impacts in the fish themselves. It should be pointed out that, at any rate, the Port Hope Harbour is not a suitable fish habitat. High summer water temperatures in the shallow basin, low dissolved oxygen content and murky waters discourage many fish species from entering the Turning Basin.
Port Hope Harbour is not a suitable fish habitat. It serves a useful purpose as a receiving body for discharge from the adjacent uranium refinery, but the only use impairment is with respect to the use of the Turning Basin as a boat mooring facility by the PHYC. This impairment is the result of restrictions placed on the dredging of the harbour sediments and the resulting difficulties this places on the boat mooring facilities.
While proper dredging techniques and disposal of dredged material would be appropriate for the contaminated sediments, radionuclides present in the Turning Basin and West Slip require that storage and disposal be in a low-level radioactive waste management facility licensed by the AECB. As mentioned earlier, no such facility is currently available. In December 1986, the Minister of State for Mines and Forests announced the formation of a special task force which would identify the process by which candidate sites will be selected for the establishment of a low-level radioactive waste disposal facility. Such a faacility would accept wastes for long-term management under fully acceptable conditions. It is unlikely, however, that such a facility will be established until the late 1990s at the very earliest.
Since the cessation of maintenance dredging in the Turning Basin and West Slip, the PHYC has reported the loss of navigational depth in some portions of the harbour. The number of small craft entering Port Hope Harbour has declined significantly in recent years and each year a number of boats run aground. Continued sedimentation will in time render the Turning Basin inoperative as a boat mooring facility if dredging is not resumed.
| CLICK HERE TO |
This page was last updated on September 24, 2000.
© Copyright 1991, 1998-2000 Michael L. Robling. All rights reserved.
E-mail: mrobling@nctvcable.com
Back to Mike Robling's Home Page
Get your own Free Home Page