Blind River Refinery Safety

Strong safety culture

Safety is our top priority. We are guided everyday by our commitment to safeguarding the health and safety of our people, communities and the environment. 

The safety culture at the Refinery reflects the commitment of every employee to put safety first – for themselves and those around them. 

Since 1990, the Refinery has received the Mary-Jean Green Mitchell award nine times. This award is Cameco’s highest safety honour and recognizes outstanding safety achievements within the company.

BRR has systematic programs to identify, document and address risks and engage all workers and managers in the development of a strong safety culture. These programs are designed around the requirements of the OHSAS 18001 standard, an international occupational health and safety system, and have delivered excellent safety performance.

Our comprehensive safety programs include:

  • Comprehensive training for all employees
  • Well established worker protection program
  • Development and maintenance of formal hazard recognition, risk assessment and change control processes
  • Established preventative maintenance program
  • Internal audit program
  • Extensive Radiation Safety Program
  • Various inspection programs, incident investigations, and ongoing analysis by the Facility Health and Safety Committee

Learn more in our Blind River Public Summary - Safety Report

Managing safety 

We manage the safety of our workers through programs, systems, and standards, with our Safety, Health, Environment and Quality (SHEQ) Policy providing overarching guidance. There are many aspects of the management system that contribute to a safe work environment, a few examples include:

  • Risk assessments help identify issues and determine the appropriate controls; the corrective action process verifies that incidents and near misses are reported, tracked, investigated and shared with colleagues; and emergency preparedness and planning prepare us to respond to serious incidents.
  • We have developed 12 corporate safety standards to help protect our workers from our most common hazards. Some standards guide our general safety practices, such as our job hazard analysis and our job task observation, and other standards deal with specific hazardous situations (similar to other companies’ life saving rules): such as fall protection, confined space entry, rigging and hoisting, and control of hazardous energy (also referred to as lockout/tagout).
  • Routine audits are conducted to monitor compliance with regulations and our own requirements. These and other aspects of the management system are routinely examined to verify that they continue to be effective at keeping our workers safe.

Security and emergency response measures

As a responsible industrial nuclear facility, maintaining security and safety are at the forefront of our day-to-day activities. Beginning with the facility’s physical design to training and equipping expert personnel, Cameco works to ensure the security and safety of our people and the local Blind River community. Our security and emergency response teams works closely with municipal emergency responders and the Mississauga First Nation and conduct joint training and/or drills to ensure any situation can be effectively and safely avoided or resolved.

Radiation protection

Radiation is energy in the form of energy waves or energized particles. Radiation is all around us and is part of our daily lives. It is both naturally occurring and man-made and it exists in different forms. Radiation can be found in everything from rocks and soil to your granite countertop, to the banana that you eat.

Radiation exposure for our workers and the public is stringently regulated by the CNSC. The acceptable levels of exposure are set by the CNSC and are based on decades of scientific studies by the International Commission on Radiological Protection. We have an extensive radiation protection program that is guided by the ALARA (as low as reasonably achievable) principle. This means that we do everything possible to minimize radiation exposures of our workers and the public.

For nuclear energy workers like those who work at the Refinery, the acceptable dose of radiation exposure is 50 milliseverts (mSv) per year, or no more than 100 mSv over a five-year period. The CNSC has set the acceptable dose of radiation exposure for a member of the public at 1 mSv.

Radiation risks are effectively managed at Blind River through a formal radiation protection program and dedicated personnel who ensure that workers are safe. The program ensures that radiation protection is considered in the physical design of all facilities and operating procedures. It also provides for systematic monitoring of radiation in work areas and tracking the exposures of individual workers using a combination of monitoring devices and health testing. Radiation exposures at Blind River are far below regulatory limits.

Regulatory oversight

The Blind River Refinery is regulated by the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) in accordance with the federal Nuclear Safety and Control Act and regulations. In addition to receiving Cameco's regular operational performance reports and incident reports, CNSC staff conducts regular site inspections and audits to verify that people and the environment are protected.

Cameco provides quarterly and annual compliance reports and appears in front of the Commission annually for the CNSC’s Regulatory Oversight Report. CNSC staff conduct regular site inspections and audits to verify that people and the environment are protected.

In addition to the CNSC, the Refinery is regulated by other federal and provincial regulators such as: 

Safety and environmental performance

Search our media library for archived reports

QUESTIONS?

If you have questions about any of the items posted here, or require copies of Annual Compliance Reports no longer available on our website, please contact us.

Related Links

Safety and Environment

Safety

Monitoring