Environmentalists yesterday called on Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. to come clean about its waste management practices after it was revealed the company broke a promise to stop dumping radioactive and chemical waste at Chalk River.
“Unfortunately, it isn’t a surprise. These types of infractions on the public trust seem to be standard practice for AECL,” said Shawn-Patrick Stensil, director of atmosphere and energy for the Sierra Club of Canada.
Regulators from the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission were outraged at a meeting last week after they discovered that AECL continued to dump tainted sludge—containing what are believed to be small amounts of radioactive and chemical material—into sandy trenches at Chalk River, in Renfrew County. The company had promised in 1997 to stop dumping the untreated sludge.
AECL has since denied its dumping had continued in secret, saying it believed the practice was out in the open. But Mr. Stensil and others called for an independent public audit into waste materials found at Chalk River, and the cost of cleaning up the site, which is about two hours west of Ottawa.
“There’s far too much secrecy about waste management practices in general at Chalk River. This is certainly not going to enhance AECL’s public image,” said Ole Hendrickson, a researcher with the Concerned Citizens of Renfrew County.
The practice of dumping the hazardous waste—which contains small amounts of radioactive materials, including cobalt and cesium 137, and hazardous chemicals such as mercury—started in the early 1960s, during a period of looser standards.
In 1995, AECL was told to stop. Two years later, the company promised to start shipping waste to an off-site treatment facility. Dumping in the sand would occur only in “very rare” emergencies, it said.
But last fall, a nuclear commission inspector noticed that sludge was being dumped. AECL admitted it had continued the practice, dumping the sewage every four to six weeks.
The company has said it never believed the sewage sludge was particularly hazardous, an argument disputed by Mr. Hendrickson.
“There are mechanisms by which low levels of radionuclides can magnify through the food chain and end up in much more concentrated forms, in fish and freshwater mussels, and in -people that eat those or drink the water. We need to take all forms of radioactive waste quite seriously,” he said.
Meredith Brown, of the organization Ottawa Riverkeeper, called the continued dumping “outrageous.” “There should be a transparent plan that says, ‘This is how we’re going to make sure that the river is protected and our public is protected.’ ”The company has said it welcomes a chance to work things out with regulators. The safety commission’s staff is expected to make a longer report on its findings by late February.
The latest revelations aren’t the first to spark the anger of environmentalists. In 1997, the Chalk River complex was found to have leaked large amounts of radioactive water through soil and into the Ottawa River for almost 20 years without warning residents.
Mr. Stensil said he was happy nuclear commission chairwoman Linda Keen, a former deputy minister of Natural Resources Canada, also called for AECL’s president to provide an explanation of the company’s overall practices. Ms. Keen said the submission could then be put before Parliament.
“We’ve never had a debate on nuclear energy in this country,” Mr. Stensil said.
“After 50 years, we should be evaluating why we’re giving money to AECL and creating all this waste that we’re going to have to pay to clean up.”