March 9th Article

March 9th, 2006

Pembroke's nuclear debacle

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Nuclear waste and regulatory inertia Stephen Salaff Stephen Harper can easily curb radioactive pollution in the Ottawa Valley Until now, the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission's riskbenefit bargaining with the nuclear industry it is supposed to regulate has been making Pembroke and Renfrew County residents truly sick. They're hoping the auditor general will redress their grievances with the commission and its "safety second" culture.

X marks the nuclear waste

"We believe that Stephen Harper's first piece of legislation will be a federal accountability act, a sweeping reform plan giving more power and teeth to independent watchdogs, including the auditor general," said Pembroke-based Paula LaPierre, elected representative of the Kichesipirini (People of the Great River) Algonquin First Nation, in early March. Prior to Harper's election, a Renfrew County nuclear concern group requested on September 23 last year that Auditor General Sheila Fraser review the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission's "failure to take effective action" to reduce industry emissions of gaseous nuclear waste in Pembroke, located 145 kilometres northwest of Ottawa, a short canoe paddle around Allumette Island from the river's Quebec shore. Days after commission inspectors flagged protracted infractions by SRB Technologies Canada Inc., the tribunal nonetheless awarded a new licence to the private firm authorizing the continued incorporation of carcinogenic and teratogenic waste into off-grid lighting devices until November 30 this year. This despite the fact the company was found to be significantly underestimating contaminant releases, and Pembroke residents have found alarming groundwater contamination at varying distances from SRB's factory. The nuclear commission's January 24 "Reasons for Decision" conjectured that the Pembroke Fire Department can independently "ensure" SRB compliance with the U.S. Department of Energy's Standard for Fire Protection for Facilities Handling Radioactive Materials, or NFPA-801. Regulatory manager Barclay Howden on September 15 of last year reported unacceptable long-term SRB transgressions of the firm's licence conditions, including the following: SRB's air pollution monitoring and environmental protection programs flunked CNSC safety requirements; SRB did not fully document its waste management program; SRB's quality assurances were inadequate; SRB did not fulfill either the National Fire Code of Canada or NFPA-801; SRB did not "always take action when required, especially in the areas of fire protection and environmental protection"; SRB disobeyed tribunal public information program guideline G-217, which demands that licensees tell nearby residents about each anticipated environmental and health effect of the licensed activity; SRB did not deliver the financial guarantees required for orderly plant shut down and decommissioning. Hearing documents provided by the commission secretariat reveal that SRB handles radiologically risky, dual-use tritium with no confinement, no containment and no physical security in a failed, unfenced industrial park. SRB lacks an exterior buffer zone, but adjoins a major Pembroke artery near a heavily used hockey arena, a well-fished river, and a residential subdivision. Lamenting SRB plant liabilities, The Globe and Mail on April 22, 1999, ran the following headline: "Pembroke puzzled by theft of tritium: Three-year-old mystery surrounds enough radioactive material to make two atom bombs." (SRB purchases radioactive tritium from Ontario Power Generation and processes it into off-grid lighting devices.)

Regulatory inertia at the tribunal substantiates the Union of Concerned Scientists' (UCS) criticism of unjustifiable nuclear commission advocacy for industry licences. Their experience-based 1987 book Safety Second, impelled into creation by the regulatory debacle implicated in history's most severe civilian nuclear catastrophes at Three Mile Island (1979) and Chernobyl (1986), alerted governments to the way regulatory staff inspectors come under the influence of licensees. The scientists argued in their book that "independent and thorough scrutiny of nuclear plant design and construction is frustrated by regulatory staff's performance as a party in licensing hearings." Basically, the staff has resolved whatever major differences it may have had with the licensee by the time any hearing begins. "From then on," wrote the UCS, "with rare exceptions, the staff becomes an advocate for issuing the licence. Having completed its review, the staff is in the position of defending its prior determinations and is reluctant to consider that the safety issues raised by interveners may have merit and might have been overlooked during the staff's safety review. The determination of the staff as advocate to have its view prevail leads sometimes to the presentation of far-fetched arguments and incomplete or misleading arguments to the licensing commission." Available SRB hearing documentation updates and demonstrates Safety Second's startling conclusions by accentuating tribunal hesitation to withdraw licence privileges, and by highlighting dangerous industry efforts to marginalize those who speak up about infringements. Director General Howden's November 30 180-degree reversal paradoxically urged the tribunal to relicense SRB "as soon as possible," rather than shutting down and decommissioning the plant as the most prudent, safest and most environmentally friendly solution for Pembroke. Hundreds of person-hours of employment could doubtless be made available to SRB workers and other nuclear industry staff under a scientifically sound and efficient decommissioning regime. Tribunal rules allow industry applicants to appeal licence decisions, but no such privilege is granted public participants in the hearing process. Prime Minister Harper can effectively act to institute citizen appeal rights at the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, and to enhance the auditor general's authority to review incongruous commission decisions, including SRB's re-licensing. Rosalie Bertell, a radiation protection professional and biostatistician, as well as a retired president of the International Institute of Concern for Public Health, worries that "Canadian radiation protection regulations are not based on health and safety standards, but rather on tradeoffs between risks and benefits. If a person living near the SRB facility suffers cancer, Canadian courts would place the onus on that individual to prove that SRB exceeded its permitted annual tritium release ceiling. However, I believe tritium could cause grievous damage even within the official radiation limit." The SRB tragedy saddens not least Canadians of Algonquin origin, the historic First Peoples of the Great River. In the coming weeks, XPress will look into the unfolding land and sovereignty claims of the Kichesipirini Algonquin First Nation to Allumette Island and nearby areas on both sides of the Ottawa River, and the relationship of these claims to the resolution of nuclear policy and nuclear waste problems. Stephen Salaff writes regularly for industry and popular publications on government failure to regulate nuclear waste. In 2004, he uncovered long-term federal and provincial regulatory toleration and justification of Ontario Power Generation's incinerator for burning "low level" tritium-bearing radioactive waste at the Bruce nuclear site, 250 kilometres northwest of Toronto and the same distance northeast of Detroit. XXX TRITIUM TUTORIAL OPG vigorously markets the tritium waste products of Canadian nuclear power reactors, whose heavy water moderator superabundantly breeds the glow-in-the-dark byproduct which destroys DNA and RNA in human genetic material, triggering cancer and birth defects. The 1991 Research Report INFO-0401, or "Tritium Releases From the Pickering Nuclear Generating Station and Birth Defects and Infant Mortality in Nearby Communities 1971-1988," by the Canadian Nuclear

Safety Commission's predecessor, found "elevated prevalence of Down Syndrome in both Pickering and Ajax," and recommended "further investigation of Down Syndrome in Pickering and Ajax." The nuclear commission has not yet published the results of such a prudent investigation of hospital charts, maternal residence at birth and chromosomal test results. (Stephen Salaff) http://www.ottawaxpress.ca/news/news.aspx?iIDArticle=8599#commentaires