Radioactive spill at north-end container terminal

A container of nuclear material was leaking aboard a container ship in Halifax’s north end Thursday evening.

A hazmat team was called in at about 9:45 p.m. Thursday evening when a possible spill was reported at the Bayne Street terminal.

About 90 minutes after emergency officials were called in, a radiation leak was confirmed.

Radioactive spill at north-end container terminal

So far, we know the material is uranium hexafluoride. The terminal has been shut down pending the arrival of nuclear experts from Ontario. (As per Haligonia.ca's Facebook page, a local news outlet.) The updates from Haligonia.ca's reporters corroborate the lead that levels 3x higher than acceptable were recorded.

Kennit

A container of nuclear material was leaking aboard a container ship in Halifax’s north end Thursday evening.

A hazmat team was called in at about 9:45 p.m. Thursday evening when a possible spill was reported at the Bayne Street terminal.

About 90 minutes after emergency officials were called in, a radiation leak was confirmed.

Radioactive spill at north-end container terminal

So far, we know the material is uranium hexafluoride. The terminal has been shut down pending the arrival of nuclear experts from Ontario. (As per Haligonia.ca's Facebook page, a local news outlet.) The updates from Haligonia.ca's reporters corroborate the lead that levels 3x higher than acceptable were recorded.

So wait.....it's in Canada?

whew!!

UxoriousMagnus

Kennit

A container of nuclear material was leaking aboard a container ship in Halifax’s north end Thursday evening.

A hazmat team was called in at about 9:45 p.m. Thursday evening when a possible spill was reported at the Bayne Street terminal.

About 90 minutes after emergency officials were called in, a radiation leak was confirmed.

Radioactive spill at north-end container terminal

So far, we know the material is uranium hexafluoride. The terminal has been shut down pending the arrival of nuclear experts from Ontario. (As per Haligonia.ca's Facebook page, a local news outlet.) The updates from Haligonia.ca's reporters corroborate the lead that levels 3x higher than acceptable were recorded.

So wait.....it's in Canada?

whew!!

Yeah... but if you want to know about seriously toxic pollution, we have Harper too.

Cheers - Dave

CBC has set up a live-blog for updates. They seem to be slow but I figure that's because it's 1:20 am here right now.

Radioactive leak investigated at Halifax Fairview Terminal

Now they're saying there was no leak. They're not retracting the statements about elevated levels of radiation however, and the experts from Toronto are still en route. There's been almost no updated information from any of the outlets, including Twitter. What's more, the CBC story claims there's been no evacuations in the area. That contrasts with the one tweet so far this morning at 6:47am from the editor of The Coast. All in all, very strange. Here's the tweet:

@Tim_Bousquet
There's an incident involving Uranium Hexafluoride @ Ceres Terminal. Elevated radioactive levels in immediate area, which has been evacuated

Twitter / Tim Bousquet

And the odd CBC story:

Halifax Fire is now saying there was no leak of radioactive material at the Fairview Container Terminal in the city's north end when as many as four steel cylinders fell from a container.

The accident occurred as a 20-foot container was being moved from a ship to the dock. The cylinders contained uranium hexafluoride.

But officials said that no one was contaminated or injured because of the incident. No evacuations of the area were expected, officials added, saying the materials on the ship are not expected to spread.

Earlier, fire officials had said there was a radioactive leak. Several emergency crews were on the scene including a Hazmat team.

The incident happened around 10 p.m. Thursday.

The fire department went to test for radioactivity at the Ceres terminal. The first team found nothing, but a second test picked up higher than normal levels of radioactivity.

Members of an emergency response action team from Toronto are expected to do a more detailed assessment of the scene after they arrive Friday afternoon. The team was first expected to arrive Friday morning.

The Atlantic Companion is a Swedish-built ship owned by Atlantic Container Line ACL.

No leak of radioactive material at Halifax port, fire officials say

The Chronicle Herald has a much more detailed update (thank you 2 am press conferences!) but it still leaves questions.

On Friday morning, Halifax Fire confirmed an action-plan team from the Transport Canada's Canadian Transport Emergency Centre is to arrive from Toronto to further assess the situation.

A hazmat team from the fire department was called in at about 9:45 p.m. Thursday night when a possible spill was reported at the Bayne Street terminal.

Two teams of specially trained firefighters conducted tests in the area six metres around the container. The first team detected only normal levels of radiation in the area. The second team found levels measuring three to four times the normal level of background radiation, McNulty said.

At that time, the crew was evacuated from the ship.

However, it was determined later the radiation was from normal sources and was not leaking from the fallen container, he said.

So, the radiation levels hit almost 4x the norm but it was from normal sources? It goes on to say that they're maintaining the evacuation zone around the container. Why do so if you've determined the leak didn't happen and the radiation is the norm? Why still bring the team from the Transport Emergency Centre if everything is fine?

The cylinders had been loaded onto the ship in Liverpool, England and once off loaded in Halifax are expected to be put onto trucks and delivered to South Carolina, McNulty said.

Until the container is dealt with, work at the shipping terminal has stopped, said Cerescorp senior vice-president of operation Calvin Whidden.

"We want to make sure that everybody is safe," Whidden said.

The fall was due to a mechanical failure, said Cerescorp senior vice-president of operations Calvin Whidden.

The container was one of more than 300 scheduled to be taken off the ship in Halifax, he said.

Everything is perfectly fine, there's no leak and the radiation is (somehow) normal but no one's to work at the terminal until the container has been dealt with? Why the hold-up?

ETA: Does anyone have an idea as to where in South Carolina these containers were headed?

CTV updates that it was actually four steel cylinders of uranium hexafluoride that fell out of the container onto the ship. It appears the emergency team from Toronto will be investigating why there are higher than normal radiation readings.

Global has an article with some embedded Vine videos from Twitter that show workers being checked for radioactivity and leaving the terminal.

After news reports that it was leaking, while raining and snowing. And that particular fuel forms a very bad gas in water, reacts extremely actively to rain or snow and attacks/corrodes the lungs. Was following a thread elsewhere with news and twitter reports, and radiation units, first test showed no radiation, the second showed radiation way beyond accepted levels.

Last night they were talking evacuation.

Now they're saying, nothing to see, move along kind of thing. We erred on the side of treating it as a serious accident, but its not, kind of thing.

Well, it was raining last night so everyone in Halifax should be very concerned, based on how this reacts to rain.

Transport Canada officials should be onsite now. What's interesting is how the evacuation zone has been handled. In the CBC coverage, the evac area is 50 feet:

McNulty said the public isn't at risk.

“The experts have told us we should have a 50-foot area around it,” he said. “So that's a very small evacuation zone.”

The call was made to evacuate the area. A further inspection showed there was no actual leak.

However, it looks like that has been significantly increased by the afternoon, according to this CTV report:

McNulty said the evacuation area at the port extended about 150 metres and would remain in place until after federal investigators arrive. He said the Canadian company responsible for shipping the product, RSB Logistic Inc., was also headed to port to confirm there was no leak and no danger.

Once the investigation wraps up, McNulty said the cylinders would be placed on a truck and continue to their destination in Columbia, S.C.

The Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission said the uranium cylinders came from an enrichment facility in the United Kingdom owned by URENCO.

It's the same guy quoted both times, too. Phil McNulty, spokesman for Halifax Regional Fire and Emergency.

They simply reacted as a precaution,but all is fine. Since Fukushima,methinks everyone is a little on edge. I too was wondering where this shipment was headed. Pretty much guarantee too that some poor guy on the docks got handed his pink slip over this. Good thing there's plenty of jobs here!

I heard one report on CBC radio that said that the canisters themselves did not leak but that they fell through the bottom of the shipping container. My concern is about the condition of the shipping container. How rusty does a container have to be before it is deemed unusable?