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Linda Nguyen
Post media News
TORONTO— Almost 80 groups from across Canada, the United States and Sweden, will give testimony starting Tuesday on a controversial plan by Bruce Power to haul 16 decommissioned radioactive steam generators across the Great Lakes to Europe for recycling.
The two-day public meetings held in Ottawa by the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) will hear from the groups, the majority of which are environmental, municipal and aboriginal representatives opposed to the plan.
“This shipment really sets a dangerous precedent,” said Edward Gordon, president of the Montreal-based Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility. “Once these shipments take place, there will be more shipments, guaranteed. The time to nip it in the bud is right now.”
The hearings were slated to involve 78 interveners, including the City of Owen Sound, Ont., the Mohawk council of Akwesasne and the Sierra Club of Canada.
Opponents argue it would be risky to move the 16 100-tonne generators across Canada’s iconic waterways and would open them to becoming a permanent corridor for the transporting nuclear waste. If the licence is approved by the CNSC, it would be the first time a shipment of this size has travelled on the Great Lakes.
The generators would then move through the St. Lawrence Seaway and across the Atlantic Ocean.
The final destination for radiation-laced steel is Studsvik, a recycling plant in Sweden that has the capacity to safely break down 90% of the metals.
“The contaminants inside these steam generators represent many of the most dangerous radioactive matters that we know of,” Mr. Gordon said. “Many of these materials inside these steam generators have lifetimes of many of tens of thousands of years, so that any spill, release or even deliberate dissemination into scrap metal is going to mean that its going to be in the environment for tens of thousands of years to come. That’s an awful thought.”
But Bruce Power, Canada’s only private nuclear power generator, argues the proposed plan is safe, because the generators contain only “low-level radiation,” a shipment that usually does not require a public hearing to be approved.
“For every 100 tonnes of steel, there are less than four grams of radiation,” said John Peevers, a company spokesman. “That’s the kind of information we hope will reassure the public, that this shipment poses no risk.”
He said the public concern over the generators is overblown by a few vocal anti-nuclear power groups, which have yet to approach the company to voice their concerns.
The company has received fewer than six questions via phone or email regarding the shipment since it announced its plans in April. Three open houses organized in the summer by Bruce Power and held in Owen Sound, Kincardine and Port Elgin, Ont. — three of the communities located in the shipment’s path — were also poorly attended by residents.
The company said a contingency plan is in place that will safeguard the generators, beginning with the shipment on the road — which will have a police escort — to ensuring that the cargo is placed on a special ship equipped to move heavy goods.
“The original plan was to put the generators into storage but this option became available to us and we want to reduce our footprint,”said Peevers. “We’re recycling, to us it makes real good environment sense. If these vessels weren’t so big, they would be shipped on a regular basis.”
The generators are part of the Bruce A nuclear reactor, which is undergoing a $5.25-billion refurbishment.
The same reactor, located on the banks of Lake Huron, was blamed for an accidental radioactive release last November.
The hearings run until Thursday. The Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission has 30 days after the hearings to decide whether it will approve the shipment.
Read more: http://www.nationalpost.com/news/canada/Debate+over+Great+Lakes+nuclear+shipments+hits+Ottawa/3586726/story.html#ixzz10qgYlTt3