Environmental and Waste Considerations in Removing Two Buried 1.5 km Long Active Drain Lines

Abstract

In the mid-1950s two buried, twinned pipelines were installed to discharge low-level radioactive liquid wastes originating from two reactors, isotope facilities and nuclear laboratories into dispersal pits within the Chalk River Laboratories Site. Throughout the operation of the pipelines, leaks were identified along the 1.5 km pipelines corridor. To remove the risk and liability associated with the pipelines, a decision was made in 2017 to remediate the pipelines and corridor. Prior to executing the remediation in 2019, data was collected on impacted environmental media and the chemical characteristics of the pipelines to satisfy environmental and waste disposal requirements. This paper discusses the types of data collected to meet remedial objectives and waste acceptance criteria, as well as the challenges in selecting environmental clean-up criteria at an operating nuclear site.