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Canadians are thinking hard about their own nuclear power plants in the wake of disastrous events in Japan flowing from that country’s earthquake and tsunami. The potential nuclear meltdown at the Fukushima plant is giving the willies to people around the world.
Until a major disaster happens, however, governments tend to be complacent about risks posed by various power sources. Or so it would seem. It’s worth remembering what happened to federal nuclear safety watchdog Linda Keen in 2008 at the hands of then-Natural Resources Minister Gary Lunn, when she raised alarm bells over safety at the Chalk River nuclear facility in Ontario.
Keen, who that same year became the first Canadian ever to be presented with the Women in Nuclear (WiN) Global Award in Marseilles, France, got the boot from the Harper Government. The feds were reacting to public pressure arising from a shortage of medical isotopes, which had resulted from Keen’s decision to order an extended shutdown of the Chalk River reactor. Concern about safety had prompted the shutdown of the 52-year old reactor for about a month in late 2007.
A ministerial directive ordered Canada’s Nuclear Safety Commission to open the Chalk River site. The agency refused, insisting a backup safety system be installed to prevent the risk of a meltdown during an earthquake or other disaster.
On Dec. 11, 2007 an emergency measure passed in the Commons overturned the watchdog’s decision. The politicians clearly were motivated by a possible public backlash over the shortage of medical isotopes, used in medical treatments.
But consider what the Keen episode says about the safety issue. Politics can and often does trump public safety.
It is chilling to acknowledge this notion, as the world watches what could be a nuclear meltdown in Japan.
Read the full article here.