Cleaning up historic waste across our sites
Safe management and storage of waste materials is a priority at all Cameco operations. Our waste management goals are to reduce health, safety and environmental risks and control costs.
Blind River
Cameco's Blind River refinery has safely recycled more than 85,000 steel drums used to package uranium concentrate. Some of these drums had been in storage for over 15 years. Because these drums were contaminated, we needed to find an effective way to clean them so they could be recycled. Blind River worked with vendors to come up with the right technical designs to grit blast the drums – an approach that ensures all areas are thoroughly cleaned and free of contaminants.
The result has been a significant reduction in overall waste inventory and a better approach to management of used drums. With the addition of a drum cutting machine, the facility can cut, clean and prepare the metal for recycling as soon as the drums are emptied of product.
In addition, Blind River's maintenance department collected other scrap metal materials stored on the property. Materials were checked for contamination, and if clean, combined with the decontaminated scrap drums for recycling. The contaminated materials found during this site cleanup were shipped to our Port Hope conversion facility, which operates a larger grit-blast system that is capable of decontaminating a broader range of shapes and sizes of metals.
Northern Saskatchewan
Our northern Saskatchewan sites have primarily focused on the cleanup of hazardous materials. Together, Key Lake and Rabbit Lake have removed nearly 1,500 drums of hazardous waste, while Cigar Lake has cleared out the equivalent of 60 drums of various waste liquids and other material, including waste calcium chloride and hydrocarbons that had accumulated over several years. All materials were characterized, packaged, and handled by a local hazardous waste management company that neutralizes and recycles the materials they receive.
Port Hope
In 2010, the Port Hope conversion facility successfully recycled 360 tonnes of historic depleted uranium (DU) metal through a US company that plans to use the DU in a medical shielding application. In the same year, Cameco transferred approximately 760 lift bags of marginally contaminated soil and 1,300 concrete slabs to a licensed facility in the US.
In 2011, the conversion facility disposed of an additional 7,500 drums of marginally contaminated soil from remediation work carried out on site in recent years. A total of 112 tonnes of similar materials from the Blind River refinery and Cameco fuel manufacturing were also disposed of in 2011. Spent carbon anodes totaling 368 tonnes were transferred to a licensed waste management facility.
Cameco's fuel manufacturing facility in Port Hope has accumulated a stockpile of zirconium tubes over many years. If rejected during the quality control process, these high-value tubes were stored as low-level radioactive waste, producing approximately 15 drums of rejected tubes each year. Thanks to the innovative efforts of Cameco staff, the tubes are now decontaminated using an ultrasonic wash tank, allowing them to be sold to an accredited recycler thus eliminating a potential environmental liability, while avoiding off-site disposal fees.
Vision 2010/Vision in Motion
The Port Hope conversion facility is the oldest operating nuclear facility in Canada. It is also home to large volumes of low-level waste materials inherited from Eldorado Nuclear, a former federal Crown Corporation. Cameco has embarked on a project (Vision 2010/Vision in Motion) that will include the removal of older buildings, contaminated soil and stored historic waste as well as the construction of several new buildings. The project will improve both the appearance and operational efficiency of Cameco's facility. Material will be transferred to a long-term, low-level radioactive waste facility being built by the Government of Canada through the Port Hope Area Initiative.
Although the environmental assessment and other parts of the regulatory approval process are still underway, we are excited and optimistic about the potential for the Vision 2010/Vision in Motion project. Vision 2010 is the name of the project during the regulatory approval process while Vision in Motion will be the name of the project once remediation and construction activities begin.