Nuclear power production is leaving behind monumental piles of radioactive soil as memorials of the heyday of nuclear power. Way back in the middle of the 20th century when everybody was giddy over nuclear power, the Canadian government set about mining and refining uranium and radium to power its massive nuclear power plants.

One of engineering’s long-standing truisms is that “the solution to pollution is dilution,” and this was certainly the maxim half a century ago. So, when soil was leftover from refining these elements in Port Hope and Port Granby, both east of Toronto on Lake Ontario, it was mixed with some more soil and used primarily as fill.

Of course, radioactive soil isn’t the sort of thing that mixes well with residential and commercial properties, and so now cleaning it up is a big problem. Yes, science knew that long before the 1970s when 100,000 cubic meters of this radioactive soil was shipped around town in dump trucks, but Eldorado Nuclear, at the time owned by the Canadian government, did it anyway.

Now, Port Hope has about 1.2 million cubic meters of contaminated soil and Port Granby has 450,000 cubic meters. To put that quantity into perspective, that’s approximately how much oil Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates pump out in a day — over 10.2 million barrels.

The soil will eventually be piled above ground in massive mounds over 2 acres at the base and nearly 40 feet high. These mounds will have linings and be monitored for leaks, but, at the end of the day, this is more about containing maximum risk than about safely storing radioactive material.

Apparently, “it’s anticipated that the mounds eventually will be safe enough for public use,” although I find that rosy outlook something of a stretch. The half-life of uranium-238 is over 4 billion years, about as long as there’s been a planet Earth.

Certainly, these radioactive memorials will make life safer for residents of Port Hope and Port Granby, but what of the families unwittingly moving into town in three decades after dumping stopped and citizens’ group mobilized to take action? What of the children who grew up playing on contaminated soil?

Will they, like the residents of Donora’s killer smog in 1948 be the catalyst that sparks a concerted movement for uncontaminated soil? Will we see a museum erected in Port Hope to honor the victims fifty years from now, as we see happening in Donora today?

The estimated cost for the cleanup is nearly 300 million Canadian dollars, but the true cost of the exposure is likely far, far greater.