Decommissioning Projects at the Chalk River Laboratories Over the Next 5 Years and the Challenges With Delivery

Abstract

Nuclear research and development carried out on behalf of the Government of Canada have resulted in 60 years of nuclear legacy liabilities at the Chalk River Laboratories. The liabilities consist of shutdown reactors, research facilities and supporting infrastructure. The Government of Canada in 2006 initiated a five-year, $520 million start-up phase and in April 2011 entered the next 5-year program of decommissioning as part of the long term strategy to address the legacy liabilities. A number of planned projects in Facilities Decommissioning, at the Chalk River Laboratories, have been defined for the next 3 years and will be described in this paper in combination with operational lessons learned for future decommissioning project work.