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Frequent alerts indicating that radioactive waste is turning up in Ontario landfills should spur the provincial government to more closely examine how such material is disposed of, the environmental commissioner and critics said today.
An annual report by the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission says alerts about radioactive waste went off 119 times across the country in the last fiscal year, up from 13 in 2005-06, and the majority of those alarms came from southern Ontario landfills.
Although the report says more than 75 per cent of all the alarms were triggered by small quantities of short-lived radioactive substances of medical origin “which pose little or no risk,” it does not elaborate on the threat posed by the other alarms.
Environmental Commissioner Gord Miller said the ambiguity of the report highlights the fact little is known about the state – and contents – of Ontario’s landfills.
“We haven’t had a comprehensive report on landfills in Ontario – in terms of their size and what waste is going in and environmental problems – since 1991,” Miller said.
“We don’t have close enough control with what’s happening in our landfill sites.”
Miller said he couldn’t comment on the significance of the radiation alarms in landfills because so little is known about the material being dumped.
“I wouldn’t push the government into doing something big and expensive if this really is a small problem, but I think what we have to do is find out how big a problem it is,” he said.
Environment Ministry spokesman John Steeles said the increase in alarms is simply a reflection of increased monitoring and doesn’t signify a growing problem.
Depending on the sensitivity of the alarms, they could be triggered by innocuous items with trace amounts of radioactive material like smoke detectors and certain medical equipment, Steeles said.
But the ministry is looking into the best practices of other jurisdictions to see if Ontario needs to update its regulations, he said.
“I think what we have to do is find out where we stand as far as other jurisdictions are concerned and then regroup after we’ve got that information, and that’s what we’re doing right now.”
New Democrat critic Peter Tabuns said the number of alarms suggests the province may be ill-equipped to deal with radioactive waste if it decides to build more nuclear power.
“They’re saying they can deal with all this, everything’s safe, everything’s under control, and yet we aren’t even having control of the small-scale stuff,” he said.
Conservative critic Lisa MacLeod echoed Miller’s calls for more study, and said more needs to be learned about how other jurisdictions might be doing a better job of dealing with toxic materials.
“The government needs to take a look not only at what they’re doing, but at what other provinces are doing to see what works best and what works quickly, because our environment and the health of Ontarians can’t be taken lightly anymore.”