Decommissioning & Remediation
Canadian Nuclear Laboratories (CNL) Decommissioning & Environmental Remediation teams work to manage and reduce the risks and liabilities associated with legacy facilities, wastes, and contaminated lands on CNL sites. The teams ensure facilities are maintained in a safe and compliant state and that decommissioning progressively reduces risk, to humans and the environment, through prudent management and cleanup of legacy contamination and affected sites.
Perform Storage with Surveillance
Storage with surveillance is the name of an interim phase before CNL can begin final decommissioning work for a facility. Storage with surveillance activities include routine maintenance, preventative and corrective maintenance, general housekeeping, maintaining operational records, documenting operating and shutdown conditions, addressing deficiencies, and upgrading facilities for placement into safe shutdown.
Planning
Planning includes characterizing facilities and land areas to determine what waste is there, preparing documentation, assessing risk, formulating strategies, and obtaining the necessary regulatory and internal approvals to prepare for physical decommissioning, dismantlement, and remediation.
Execution
Execution refers to managing the physical decommissioning, dismantlement, demolition, and site remediation work.
What is decommissioning?
The Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) defines decommissioning as the administrative and technical actions taken to retire a facility from service or to cease licensed activities, and which allow the removal of some or all of the regulatory controls from a facility or location where nuclear substances are managed, possessed or stored. The time period for the conduct of decommissioning actions can range from a few weeks for small and simple facilities, to years or decades for larger and more complex facilities, especially in the case of deferred decommissioning.
What is environmental remediation?
Environmental remediation is the removal, reduction or control of contaminants in soil, water (both groundwater and surface water) and/or sediment in order to protect human health and the environment.
What is storage with surveillance?
When active decommissioning is not advanced promptly, the facility is maintained in a safe configuration so that subsequent decontamination and/or dismantling can be carried out. Appropriate storage with surveillance programs are established to confirm that the structures, systems, and components needed to maintain safe storage are functioning as required.
During storage with surveillance, CNL can perform some activities to reduce risks at the facility. These may include:
- reduction or removal of combustibles
- removal and recycling of non-contaminated or slightly-contaminated equipment (e.g., turbines, pumps and heat exchangers)
- reduction or isolation of asbestos
- demolition of non-nuclear facilities
- removal of radioactive waste to an offsite licensed storage facility
- reduction or removal of hazardous wastes