Rankin Construction was invited along with CH2MHILL to extract precast concrete pipes know as tile holes that were stored vertically underground and contained low to intermediate level radioactive waste. Ontario Power Generation's continuous monitoring of the tile holes indicated that one or more of the 23 on site were leaking into the ground.
Rankin worked with CH2MHILL's design team to create the methodology and execution plan for the safe extration of the tile holes that were to be moved to storage in a low level storage building above ground. Rankin Construction came up with the methodology of encasing the tile holes by using a Hydraulic Casing Oscillator which had to be sourced from overseas as only 5 exist in North America. In 2001 one tile hole was removed using this methodology and the contract for the remaining 22 granted in 2002 as a result of the success of the 2001 pilot project.
Safety was a critical consideration on this job and it is worth noting that on top of the fact that the job was completed ahead of schedule and under budget only 25% of the radiation dose allotted for the project was used.
The project team authored a paper on the project and presented it at the "Canadian Nuclear Energy Systems" convention in 2003.
