https://www.cbc.ca/newsinteractives/
One northern remediation project illustrates the complexity of the issue
If not for the fences and the signs, nothing’s obviously threatening about the radioactive waste that has plagued Nipissing First Nation for decades. It looks like sandy soil peppered with small rocks. Behind the benign appearance, however, are niobium and other naturally occurring radioactive materials that were left behind by a defunct mining operation dating back to the early days of the Cold War.
With the company long gone and the Ministry of Mines busy remediating and monitoring the other 5,865 abandoned mining projects in Ontario, the waste has just sat there for 67 years.
It contains elements that release radium and radon gas once they begin to decay, and they can be harmful in high concentrations — although a 2012 federal government study concluded that for this particular waste, the risks to humans was low. Most of the contaminated soil is located on the shore of Lake Nipissing, in one of the northern Ontario community’s most populated neighbourhoods.
For the rest of this article: https://www.cbc.ca/newsinteractives/features/who-will-pay-for-ontarios-radioactive-past