Canada’s nuclear watchdog has approved normal operations to resume at Whiteshell Laboratories, more than a year after work was halted due to safety concerns.
Workers officially returned to the former research facility on Sept. 16, ending a stop-work order imposed by the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission last April.
Canadian Nuclear Laboratories, the organization contracted to manage the site, was ordered to complete a multi-phase restart plan after a fire-safety assessment identified deficiencies; a related fine of approximately $15,000 was later imposed.
MIKAELA MACKENZIE / FREE PRESS FILES
Workers officially returned to work Sept. 16 at the Whiteshell Laboratories former research facility in Pinawa.
Free Press requests to view the restart plan were denied by the organization, but a public statement on its website notes it has completed “over 160 corrective actions in the last 15 months” to strengthen its first program and other safety measures.
“A third-party assessment and (Canadian Nuclear Laboratories’) own internal assessments have all concluded that CNL’s fire program now complies with programmatic requirements, and that its corrective action plan has addressed the systematic issues in its operations,” the statement says.
Some workers were permitted to return to the facility last December to complete essential maintenance, the Free Press reported.
“CNL now has the authority to resume all operations as permitted by the Whiteshell Laboratories site licence, including radiological and higher-risk conventional fieldwork,” the statement said.
The Pinawa lab site, roughly 110 kilometres northeast of Winnipeg, is being decommissioned and is home to two inactive nuclear reactors. In addition to the reactors, the 11,000-acre site hosts several research and support facilities and a waste-management area containing low-, intermediate- and high-level radioactive waste.
Other hazardous materials present include asbestos, lead, mercury, mould, organic reactor coolant, chlorine gas and quantities of arsenic and other toxic metals, according to a licence renewal application filed by Canadian Nuclear Laboratories last February.
Since assuming management of the site, the organization has taken down more than 40 buildings and transported 6,700 cubic metres of waste to Chalk River Laboratories, another facility in Ontario.
MIKAELA MACKENZIE / FREE PRESS FILES
Canadian Nuclear Laboratories was previously ordered to complete a multi-phase restart plan at the Whiteshell Laboratories in Pinawa.
Canadian Nuclear Laboratories licence for the Whiteshell site expires Dec. 31. The safety commission is set to review the three-year renewal application Oct. 23-24 during a public virtual hearing.
In 2016, the organization submitted a proposal to the federal government asking it to approve an “in situ” (leaving in place) decommissioning approach. The plan involves removing all above-ground structures and entombing the former reactors in concrete.
The safety commission has not approved the action, and is awaiting the results of an environmental assessment. The in-situ plan proposal will not be discussed during the hearing, it said.
tyler.searle@freepress.mb.ca
Tyler Searle
Reporter
Tyler Searle is a multimedia producer who writes for the Free Press‘s city desk. A graduate of Red River College Polytechnic’s creative communications program, he wrote for the Stonewall Teulon Tribune, Selkirk Record and Express Weekly News before joining the paper in 2022. Read more about Tyler.
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