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"The detailed design of a $20-million, longterm management facility to contain historic low-level radioactive waste in Port Hope has been awarded to the joint venture of MMM Group Limited/ Conestoga-Rovers and Associates Limited of Thornhill, ON. "Our goal is the cleanup and safe long-term management of historic low-level radioactive waste in the Port Hope area. This is an important step forward in our commitment to the people in the Port Hope community," Northumberland-Quinte West MP Rick Norlock announced on behalf of the federal government at the Port Hope Area Initiative (PHAI) in Port Hope Monday. "By working collaboratively, we are moving ahead with the procurement phase in a fair and transparent manner." In addition to the detailed design of the long-term waste management facility, the joint venture of MMM Group Limited/ Conestoga-Rovers and Associates Limited will also design the associated supporting infrastructure and plan the remediation of numerous sites throughout the municipality. "

Question: When is a plan not a plan? Answer: When it is Atomic Energy of Canada Limited's "cleanup" proposal for the town of Port Hope, Ontario. At a packed hearing last week, Canada's nuclear regulator, the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, listened to presentations on the proposal from its staff, AECL, private citizens, and volunteer organizations - roughly 100 presentations in all, spanning 17 hours of hearing time. AECL is asking for a licence for a low level radioactive waste site. The site will house approximately 1.5 million cubic metres of nuclear and industrial waste, collected from the community over the course of the next decade. The proposal was approved in 2007, following a six-year environmental assessment. The ensuing licensing process should have been fairly straight forward - hash out a few technical details and get shovels in the ground.

Question: When is a plan not a plan? Answer: When it is Atomic Energy of Canada Limited's "cleanup" proposal for the town of Port Hope, Ontario. At a packed hearing last week, Canada's nuclear regulator, the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, listened to presentations on the proposal from its staff, AECL, private citizens, and volunteer organizations - roughly 100 presentations in all, spanning 17 hours of hearing time. AECL is asking for a licence for a low level radioactive waste site. The site will house approximately 1.5 million cubic metres of nuclear and industrial waste, collected from the community over the course of the next decade. The proposal was approved in 2007, following a six-year environmental assessment. The ensuing licensing process should have been fairly straight forward - hash out a few technical details and get shovels in the ground.

Question: When is a plan not a plan? Answer: When it is Atomic Energy of Canada Limited's "cleanup" proposal for the town of Port Hope, Ontario. At a packed hearing last week, Canada's nuclear regulator, the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, listened to presentations on the proposal from its staff, AECL, private citizens, and volunteer organizations - roughly 100 presentations in all, spanning 17 hours of hearing time. AECL is asking for a licence for a low level radioactive waste site. The site will house approximately 1.5 million cubic metres of nuclear and industrial waste, collected from the community over the course of the next decade. The proposal was approved in 2007, following a six-year environmental assessment. The ensuing licensing process should have been fairly straight forward - hash out a few technical details and get shovels in the ground.

- The annual telephone survey to gauge public attitudes about the community's low-level radioactive waste (LLRW) clean-up is set to kick-off once again in Port Hope. The Port Hope Area Initiative's (PHAI) eighth annual public attitude survey will get underway in mid-November, said Sue Stickley, communications officer. Every year, the PHAI surveys local residents to get feedback on issues related to the clean-up and safe long-term management of historic low-level radioactive waste in the community. As in past years, individual survey responses are absolutely confidential, but the overall results will be made public. "If you receive a phone call and are invited to take part in the survey, please take a few moments to answer the interviewer's questions," said Ms. Stickley.

- The annual telephone survey to gauge public attitudes about the community's low-level radioactive waste (LLRW) clean-up is set to kick-off once again in Port Hope. The Port Hope Area Initiative's (PHAI) eighth annual public attitude survey will get underway in mid-November, said Sue Stickley, communications officer. Every year, the PHAI surveys local residents to get feedback on issues related to the clean-up and safe long-term management of historic low-level radioactive waste in the community. As in past years, individual survey responses are absolutely confidential, but the overall results will be made public. "If you receive a phone call and are invited to take part in the survey, please take a few moments to answer the interviewer's questions," said Ms. Stickley.

Andy Thorne, general manager of Cameco Corp.'s Port Hope conversion facility, provided an update on the contamination situation to about 80 Port Hope residents Monday, similar to the one provided to Port Hope council last Tuesday. Yellow staining was observed in the bottom of excavation pit in the UF6 building on July 13, 2007, and Cameco halted production six days later, once it was discovered the contamination was more widespread than originally thought.

With just one more ingredient in Port Stanley harbour's toxic soup, the federal government might have agreed to clean it up. A dash of uranium might have done the trick, as it did in Port Hope, a Lake Ontario community about 100 kilometres east of Toronto. "We do have an agreement for a federal cleanup," says Linda Thompson, mayor of the town of 16,500 that was locked in talks for years with a federal government that wanted to unload the town's harbour. Port Hope's harbour has similar contamination to that of its cousin on Lake Erie: coal tar, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), heavy metals and other leftovers from an industrial past.

A leak was found under the UO2 (uranium dioxide) plant during its shutdown that has been contributing to the historical and recent contamination of the soils at Cameco's Port Hope Conversion Facility, general manager Andy Thorne told Port Hope council last night. He said a yellow stain led to the discovery of the leak under the main sump near the eastern wall of the U02 building and on Nov. 5, excavation took place to remove 17.5 cubic metres of contaminated soil. They dug down 1.8 metres to remove as much soil as could safely be removed, and then drilled a collection well outside the wall to capture any groundwater contamination. "Any contaminated water will be addressed by the collection well," Mr. Thorne said. "It is a localized area and we are able to address the situation adequately."

The suspension of uranium hexafluoride (UF6) production at Cameco Corp.'s Port Hope, Ont., conversion facility will result in layoffs at the plant but will not affect its uranium production in Saskatchewan, the company says. Cameco Corp. announced Friday it has temporarily suspended UF6 production at Port Hope due to a contract dispute with its hydrofluoric acid (HF) supplier. The Saskatoon-based company, one of the world's largest uranium producers, says the dispute has resulted in unreliable and expensive deliveries of HF.

Although still in the licensing phase, full approval for the Port Hope Low Level Radioactive Waste clean-up is expected by mid-2009. "The licensing phase will continue through some hearings in the spring and summer of 2009," said Mark Stevenson, project manager for the Port Hope project. That approval would allow the municipality, together with the Low Level Radioactive Waste Management Office (LLRWMO), to move forward with plans to remediate radioactive waste within the municipality and transfer it to a long-term waste management facility, which will be constructed as part of the project.

The safety of drinking water from Lake Ontario is a concern to Cobourg in light of recent contamination fears originating in Port Hope. "It appears that uranium, fluoride and arsenic has reached the harbour, but we can't be sure until we can collect more data," Cameco communications specialist Doug Prendergast told Port Hope council last week. He said Cameco has been busy installing wells along the harbour wall area, and is about halfway through the installation of 22 wells, and they expect to begin collecting data within the next few weeks. Over the past 10 months, Cameco and Golder Associates have been working to trace the path of contamination discovered in July 2007, when employees found yellow staining in the UF6 pla

The municipality and public are likely to have continued input on plans to remove historic low-level radioactive waste (LLRW) in Port Hope, after asking the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) that its involvement be a condition of the project moving forward. "We've had an excellent cooperative consultation program and we look to that to continue," said Mayor Linda Thompson. "The comments of the CNSC staff reassured us." The commission spent Wednesday, Aug. 26 and half of Thursday, Aug. 27 listening to local concerns about Atomic Energy of Canada Limited's (AECL) application for a nuclear waste substance license to operate a long-term low-level waste management facility.

Families Against Radiation Exposure recently released soil test results showing that a popular Port Hope beach playground is contaminated with uranium ('Port Hope park safe: Mayor', May 1). The volunteer environmental organization handed out brochures to fishermen and residents at noon at the East Beach park at Mill and Madison Streets. FARE provided the results to Mayor Linda Thompson, but she has not made them public. FARE believes the public, which uses the beach area, has a right to know it is contaminated by uranium more than four times higher than guidelines issued by the Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment (CCME). What is disturbing is the testing was done by SENES Consultants for Cameco Corporation and sent in a report to the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) in June, 2008, but nobody told the municipality or the Low-Level Radioactive Waste Management Office (LLRWMO).

After a long and challenging 14 months, Cameco Corporation has received permission to resume production at its uranium hexaflouride (UF6) plant. "We're in the final stages of putting the plant back into operation and production should start within the next several days," said Andy Oliver, vice president of Cameco's fuel services division, during a presentation to Port Hope council on Sept. 16. He detailed the status of the contamination at Cameco's Port Hope conversion plant.

In Bill Tuer's letter to Northumberland News (May 30), he appears to be satisfied with Health Canada's studies and findings of Port Hope in 1978, 1981, 1988, 1995, 2000 and 2001. These six studies have failed to identify the unnatural uranium isotopes of U234 and U236 in people like myself. Health Canada and the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission should be ashamed that the Port Hope Community Health Concerns Committee had to raise the funds for radio-biological testing of 11 people. Waiting on our government gave us nothing. The study was small, it was a start, but look what it found. Of the 11 people, three of four workers were contaminated with U236 - spent reactor fuel; one worker with depleted uranium (DU); all four workers with elevated U234; and five non-workers all with elevated U234.

Resumes UF6 production at Ontario plant * Had expected to resume output in third quarter * No change to fuel services production outlook TORONTO, June 17 (Reuters) - Cameco Corp (CCO.TO) said on Wednesday it has restarted production of uranium hexafluoride (UF6) at its Port Hope, Ontario, nuclear fuel conversion facility, slightly ahead of schedule. The uranium producer suspended production of UF6 -- used in the uranium enrichment process -- last December after failing to come to terms with its main supplier of hydrofluoric acid, which is needed to produce UF6.

Although Cameco reports it did not exceed any Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) action levels in the last quarter of 2008, elevated fence line gamma was reported at station 20 at the Dorset Street East warehouse, Rebecca Peters, superintendent of compliance and licensing for the Port Hope conversion facility, told Port Hope council last week. "The levels were below the CNSC limit. Cameco investigated these results and determined that movement of drums within the building caused this increase," Peters said. "In the future, site radiation protection staff will be directly involved with the movement of materials at this site to prevent future reoccurrence of this type of increase. Additional monitoring has indicated that the levels have dropped. This monitoring will continue until Cameco is confident that gamma levels at station 20 have re-stabilized." There were four issues in that quarter as described by Peters.

The cleanup of low level radioactive waste in Port Hope has been given the go-ahead by the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission. A five-year licence for the project was announced by the commission yesterday. Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. had requested a 10-year licence for the project. The licence will be valid until Dec. 31, 2014. It takes effect on the date of the land transfer of the Welcome Waste Management Facility property from Cameco and Canada Eldor Inc. to the federal government.

The cleanup of low level radioactive waste in Port Hope has been given the go-ahead by the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission. A five-year licence for the project was announced by the commission yesterday. Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. had requested a 10-year licence for the project. The licence will be valid until Dec. 31, 2014. It takes effect on the date of the land transfer of the Welcome Waste Management Facility property from Cameco and Canada Eldor Inc. to the federal government.

British Columbia, Sept 16 (Reuters) - Cameco Corp has resolved the leak problem at its Port Hope, Ontario, nuclear conversion plant and hopes to restart it at a reduced rate within the next few days, the company said on Tuesday.

* Resolves contract dispute with acid supplier * To restart UF6 production in third quarter * Shares up 4.4 percent TORONTO, May 19 (Reuters) - Cameco Corp (CCO.TO) said on Tuesday it will restart production of uranium hexafluoride (UF6) at its Port Hope, Ontario, plant after resolving a contract dispute with a key supplier. The uranium producer suspended production of UF6 -- used in the uranium enrichment process -- last December after failing to come to terms with its main supplier of hydrofluoric acid, which is needed to produce UF6.

"Uranium emissions that possibly exceeded the action level at Cameco's Port Hope Conversion Facility has the federal nuclear regulator asking for more emissions information from the company. According to a Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) media release, the CNSC feels further improvements to Cameco's uranium dioxide (UO2) plant in-house stack sampling system and preventative maintenance program are needed after uranium emissions at the plant on June 29 potentially exceeded the action level. Based on a Cameco report, the CNSC determined the UO2 plant uranium emission rate was 7.21 gU/h (grams of uranium emissions per hour). Although this rate is well below the licensed limit of 150 gU/h, it is above the plant's action level of 7 gU/h."