Port Radium

Vein The dimensions of the openings have a wide range, from the massive veins of pitchblende at Jachymov, Shinkolobwe, and Port Radium to the narrow pitchblende filled cracks, faults, and fissures in some of the ore bodies in Europe, Canada, and Australia. 

Howe GR, Nair RC, Newcombe HB, et al. 1987. Lung cancer mortality (1950-80) in relation to radon daughter exposure in a cohort of workers at the Eldorado Port Radium uranium mine Possible modification of risk by exposure rate. J Natl Cancer Inst 79 1255-1260. 

Grace M, Larson M, Hanson J. 1980. Bronchogenic carcinoma among former uranium mine workers at Port Radium, Canada. Health Phys 38 657-661. 

Virtually all of the Canadian mills have used a variant of the acid-leaching process developed by the Mines Branch to extract uranium fiiom the ore, and all but Port Radium have followed this by ion-exchange purification of the leach solution with strong-base resins. The uranium usually is precipitated with ammonia to produce ammonium diuranate (yellow cake). 

By hydrothermal leaching of granitic rocks containing uranium and subsequent deposition, veins with uranium contents of several percent can be formed. This is the case in deposits at Joachimsthal in Bohemia, at Port Radium in Canada, and at Chin-golobwe in Zaire (Congo Kinshasa). 

Though both discoverers deserve recognition, Menten faced the additional challenge of being a woman scientist at a time when professional advancement for women was very difficult. Bom in Port Lambton, Ontario, Canada, Menten graduated from the University of Toronto with a B.A. in 1904 and an M.B. in medicine in 1907. For the 1907 to 1908 year, she was appointed a fellow at the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research, New York, where she studied the effect of radium on tumors. Returning to Canada, Menten continued her medical studies, and in 1911 she became one of the first women in Canada to receive a medical doctorate. 

Digestion with hot sulphuric acid of moderate concentration is used at Port Pirie in South Australia. The ore, mined at Radium Hill, contains the refractory mineral davidite which does not respond to leaching with dilute acid in the usual way. The high acid usage is justified by the fact that the ore, mined at a grade of about 0-25 per cent, is concentrated by flotation and heavy media separation to about 1 per cent before acid treatment. 

Titanium can sometimes behave in a similar manner to silica, i.e. the oxide deposits physically upon the resin beads. This occurs, for example, at the Port Pirie refinery in Australia which uses the Radium Hill Davidite ore containing titanium. The effect has been considerably alleviated by reduction of the acid usage at the ore leaching stage, thus preventing much of the titanium from reaching the resin. 

Bennett estimated that Eldorado had about ninety-six grams of radium on hand or in production at Port Hope. CRUC had thirty-five grams, and about the same amount was out on lease. Even if Eldorado could never put its hands on this extra seventy grams, it had a lot of radium in its possession. An intensive sales eflfort might convert this expensive inventory into cash. ... 

Bennett s first move in this direction was to establish at Eldorado s Port Hope refinery a radium filling operation - a workshop where radium could be prepared in various forms for medical and industrial uses. It was a costiy undertaking because of the special equipment required for handling radioactive materials. Weighing and filling required custom-built lead-shielded cabinets with special exhaust fans to evacuate the radon gas emitted by radium as it decays. The facility also needed... 

It was this commercial market that made the filling operation at Port Hope necessary. To serve private-sector customers, Eldorado had to offer them radium in a form that they could use. The filling lab prepared radium for its primary medical market by packing it in needles, moulds, or tubes in precise quantities. Gradually Errington developed an extensive line of other radium products to serve a wide variety of customer needs. One example was radium-beryllium sources for well-lo ng in the oil business. Companies servicing the mining sector used this technique to determine if there were oil reserves in the vicinity of a dry drill hole. Radium combined with beryllium in the proper ratio produces millions of neutrons a second. This neutron source could be lowered down... 

Perhaps it simply did not occur to Chalk River that Eldorado should handle isotope distribution. The scientists there knew Eldorado as a uranium producer but had no sense that its destiny was linked to theirs. Moreover, their opinion of Eldorado was tainted by the Port Hope refinery s reputation for poor control of radioactive emissions - the legacy of three decades of processing radium in an era of less rigorous health standards. W.B. Lewis was appalled by conditions there. Errington shared this concern and had eliminated Port Hope as a possible site for Eldorado s isotope work. Nevertheless, many people associated Eldorado s sales department with Port Hope, which gave it a bush-league reputation in the minds of the Chalk River cognoscenti. 

Nevertheless, the two men eventually worked out the terms of the transfer. CPD would continue to sell most of its existing product line, including radium processed through the Port Hope refinery and filling operation. A highet powet would decide exactly what assets should go to AECL and how Eldorado should be compensated. How to deal with radium rentals proved the thorniest issue. It made sense for CPD to take over the rental business, but paying olF Eldorado for loss of this regular source of revenue would take millions of dollars that Howe was not prepared to hand over in a lump sum. Eventually it was decided that Eldorado would retain ownership of and the rental revenue from radium it had produced before the transfer. ... 

Meanwhile the physical separation of the company s parts created numerous headaches and inefficiencies in day-to-day operations. The main offices were still in the basement of the Beamish building on Montreal Road, but other office space was leased nearby as the white-collar workforce grew. The radium-filling operation remained in Eldorado s premises in Port Hope, while Chalk River produced and refined isotopes. Neither the radium nor the isotopes group had the equipment to do its work efficiently, but there was no point investing in existing quarters because they were temporary. 

The new building took longer to finish than a normal structure because of the special features that had to be incorporated to accommodate all these activities. The handling of radioactive materials required more customized installations than did any other function, especially because significant improvements in safety standards were incorporated. The radioactive materials processing faciUties at Tunney s Pasture would segregate distina functions much more rigorously than thqr had ever been at Port Hope or Chalk River. Radium and cobalt-60 would each have a separate production line, and there would be a third line for all other isotopes. 

Errington could have relied more on the fiUing department in Port Hope, but it had no personnel who were expert in teletherapy. Besides, although they were used to dealing with radium, they wete apprehensive about handling cobalt-60 because it had a much higher level of radioactivity. 

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