Environmental Risk Assessments
What is an environmental risk assessment?
An ERA is a systematic process used to identify and assess the potential risk posed by releases from the operation to people and the environment. There are two parts to an ERA:
- an assessment of the exposure and potential risk to people who use the area through a human health risk assessment (HHRA)
- an assessment of living things in the environment (such as plants, insects, and animals) through an ecological risk assessment (EcoRA).
ERAs follow guidance provided by CSA and various agencies, such as Health Canada (HC), Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC), Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment (CCME) and the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC).
What are the results?
Cameco has completed a detailed quantitative environmental risk assessments (ERA) on its northern Saskatchewan operations to align with the standardized requirements found in CSA N288.6-12 Environmental risk assessment at Class I nuclear facilities and uranium mines and mills (CSA 2012).
Overall, the results, supported by monitoring results, are consistent with previously approved ERAs and demonstrate that the downstream environment and human health in the vicinity of the of Cameco’s northern Saskatchewan operations remain protected. Further, the ERAs and routine monitoring results continue to demonstrate that the sites remain within the objective of the licensing basis and previous Environmental Assessment predictions.