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A group that promotes awareness when it comes to the use of tritium said Wednesday the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission has been too lenient when dealing with leaks at the Chalk River nuclear reactor.
Representatives from the Tritium Awareness Project said they think the safety commission should impose tighter restrictions when it comes to the tritium that is occasionally released from both the plant’s stack and through leaks of the plant’s heavy water that allow tritium to evaporate into the air.
Tritium is a gas and a radioactive isotope of hydrogen and is a byproduct of nuclear power generation and is used to create fluorescent products such as lights and signs.
“The CNSC’s attitude seems to be, ‘If that’s what they want to do, then it’s our job is just to grant them a licence,’” said Gordon Edwards, who speaks for the Tritium Awareness Project.
Edwards said the government should be concerned about what happens at the Chalk River plant, but also about how tritium leaks affect area communities.
“What they’re doing is they’re marketing radioactive waste from CANDU reactors and they’re polluting other communities with this radioactive waste in the process,” he said.
The safety commission, however, rejected the charge that it is too lax when it comes to the release of tritium in the Ottawa Valley — from both the Chalk River reactor, which was shut down May 15, and a manufacturing plant in Pembroke.
For instance, the safety commission said it issued a cease-and-desist order to SRB technologies, a Pembroke company that uses tritium to manufacture fluorescent lights and signs, in August 2006.
“The order was issued to prevent further contamination and unreasonable risk to the environment surrounding the facility,” said Sunny Locatelli, who speaks for the safety commission.
An independent consulting firm hired by SRB said soil and groundwater samples revealed up to 80 times the acceptable level of tritium, but the commission allowed the plant to resume operations once the problem had been fixed.
Locatelli, however, said, “the extent and magnitude of groundwater contamination surrounding the site is not yet fully defined.”
He also said that the Ottawa River contains only about one-1,000th of Canada’s allowable concentration of tritium.
Critics have said that Canadian restrictions should be more in line with the standards of other countries.
In the United States, the rules are 10 times stricter and in the European Union, they are seven times stricter.