PHAI – Contract Agreement Ended for Port Hope Harbour Clean-up
Canadian Nuclear Laboratories (CNL) and Milestone Environmental Contracting Inc. have ended the agreement under which Milestone was performing Port Hope Area Initiative (PHAI) work at the Port Hope Harbour and Centre Pier site, effective June 30. This is the PHAI’s most complex scope of work.
Select activities will be undertaken to prepare the site for a replacement contractor while non-essential work at the Port Hope Harbour/Centre Pier, suspended in March due to the COVID-19 pandemic, will remain paused until a new contract is in place. During this transition period, CNL staff will continue to ensure that the site is maintained in a safe and secure state while inviting bids for the remaining work. The new contract will include completing the rehabilitation of the aging harbour walls, dredging the harbour to remove sediment contaminated with historic low-level radioactive waste, continuing to collect and treat contaminated water on site, and cleaning up and restoring the Centre Pier.
CNL will incorporate the valuable lessons learned from work completed to date at the harbour in its process to hire a new contractor, with the goal of having that contract in place by no later than the start of the 2021 construction season.
The pandemic-related work stoppage and the change in contracting strategy is expected to extend the PHAI presence in the harbour area by an additional year. CNL and Atomic Energy of Canada Limited (AECL), the Government of Canada’s representative overseeing the federal PHAI project, remain committed to completing the Port Hope Harbour/Centre Pier scope of work safely, in compliance with regulatory requirements and in an environmentally responsible manner. CNL will continue to look for efficiencies to shorten the project timeline where possible.
The contract for Milestone to complete the remaining restoration work at several residential properties remains in place, with that work underway and expected to be finished this summer. All other PHAI work by CNL contractors at residential and larger sites, including other sites in the waterfront area, is continuing to ramp up in phases according to the pandemic-related directives and guidance of government and public health authorities.
Author: Pete Fisher
Has been a photojournalist for over 30-years and have been honoured to win numerous awards for photography and writing over the years. Best selling author for the book Highway of Heroes - True Patriot Love