Thirty-five properties in Port Hope will soon be the subjects of a trial resurvey, Glen Case, manager of project engineering with the Port Hope Area Initiative (PHAI) Management Office, told Port Hope council recently.

The trial will be conducted in order to test out the procedures and systems before the full-scale cleanup takes place, he said.

They will also be testing their communication plans and methods, and confirming and updating existing information on historic radioactive waste and contaminated soil and refining remediation procedures.

“The 35 properties will be a good cross-section of properties,” he said.

This trial project is the latest step forward in the PHAI’s efforts to complete the cleanup of Port Hope’s historic low-level radioactive waste.

A consulting team from SNC Lavalin Inc. will be in charge of the resurvey on behalf of the PHAI MO. The properties were chosen based on data that was compiled in the initial cleanup work done in the 1970s by the Government of Canada and maintained through the Low-Level Radioactive Waste Management Office (LLRWMO) and its ongoing Construction Monitoring Program, he said.

“The properties involved were chosen because they represent a variety of types of resurvey situations we expect to face when the full resurvey and remediation work begins in about two years,” Bob Neufeld, stakeholder relations and communications manager for the PHAI MO said in a press release. “The work that is being done now will provide a basis for the full resurvey program to be carried out under the overall cleanup effort in Port Hope.”

The lessons learned will be applied to the complete resurvey of about 4,500 properties in Port Hope that will be undertaken as part of the overall cleanup project, which is expected to begin in 2012.

Information about the Port Hope Area Initiative and its resurvey project is available at www.phai.caor from the Project Information Exchange at 115 Toronto Road in Port Hope at 905-885-0291.

via PHAI conducting a trial survey – Northumberland Today – Ontario, CA.