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A Three-Mile-Island-type of nuclear accident could occur at Canada’s Chalk River reactor unless a backup power supply system, capable of withstanding natural disasters such as earthquakes, is installed, according to an assessment by the president of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission.
It is “essential” that the safety equipment be installed on two crucial pumps before the reactor, which makes more than half the world’s nuclear medicines, is restarted, Linda Keen wrote in a blunt letter to two federal government ministers.
Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. voluntarily took the 50-year-old reactor out of service on Nov. 18 for routine maintenance. Then shortly afterward, the CNSC discovered that the safety equipment hadn’t been installed as promised by AECL.
The shutdown has prompted a worldwide shortage of isotopes for cancer treatment and other medical applications, as well as a political firestorm in Ottawa, where Parliament agreed to hold a special late night session to pass emergency legislation Tuesday, bypassing the regulator and allowing the reactor to resume operations immediately.
“There will be no nuclear accident,” Prime Minister Stephen Harper asserted in the House of Commons, saying the government has received independent advice indicating there is no safety concern.
“On the contrary, what we do know is that the continuing actions of the Liberal-appointed Nuclear Safety Commission will jeopardize the health and safety and lives of tens of thousands of Canadians. We do have the responsibility to demand that Parliament step in and fix this situation before the health of more people is put in jeopardy.”
The emergency legislation introduced by the Conservatives, which would allow AECL to start the reactor immediately and run it for 120 days, was passed unanimously by all parties after four hours of civilized debate.
To address the concerns of the Liberals about the need to weigh the ramifications of the bill, politicians heard from a series of witness, including Ms. Keen and representatives of the AECL.
Health Minister Tony Clement, who was advised that the reactor had been shut down on Dec. 5 – several weeks after it was no longer running – said the 120-day delay specified in the bill will provide a “period of stability for the production of isotopes.” It will allow the isotope supply to “get back on-line, said Mr. Clement and “allow for an orderly situation to develop for Atomic Energy of Canada so that if they go off-line again we will have the time to prepare so we will not be put in this position again.”
Ms. Keen wrote in her Monday letter to Natural Resources Minister Gary Lunn and Mr. Clement that the problem at the Chalk River facility “revolves around the lack of connection of two heavy water pumps to an emergency power supply in order to avoid a fuel failure resulting in potential radioactive releases into the environment.”
The scenario outlined by Ms. Keen – a so-called loss of coolant accident – is the most feared in the nuclear industry and similar to what occurred at Three Mile Island in 1979. These accidents are caused by an interruption in the flow of fresh cooling water into reactors, making them overheat and, in a worst case, melt down and spew radioactivity.
The letter posted on the CNSC website is a warning that such a serious accident, although unlikely, is conceivable at Chalk River, which is operated by AECL and located about 180 kilometres northwest of Ottawa.
“The engineers and scientists at the CNSC have advised that the two backup pumps … are essential and are required pursuant to current industry standards and risk tolerance assessments,” Ms. Keen said.
Ms. Keen’s letter indicates that she believes allowing the aging reactor to resume operating before installing the two backup power systems would be unwise, a view endorsed by environmentalists.
“It seems to me you’re just gambling, basically, saying ‘Well, we hope there is not an earthquake,’” said Ole Hendrickson, a spokesman for Concerned Citizens of Renfrew County, an environmental group that monitors the AECL site.
Ms. Keen wrote to the ministers in response to a letter they sent her Monday, suggesting that the CNSC was being overcautious in requiring the reactor to immediately have the safety equipment on both pumps.
Mr. Harper said he received different advice from Daniel Menely, former chief engineer of AECL, and Robert Strickert, former manager of Pickering and Site, VP Darlington.
AECL had shut the reactor for routine maintenance in November and then voluntarily kept it shuttered after discovering it wasn’t in compliance with a long-standing CNSC licence condition requiring the backup power system. The equipment, known as motor starters, is designed to ensure pumps continue operating during earthquakes, floods, tornados and fires, among other disasters.
The CNSC would have ordered the reactor to be closed because of the lack of the safety equipment, had the AECL not shut it down, Barclay Howden, a senior CNSC official, said Tuesday in an interview.
Ms. Keen is declining interviews about the letter because she has to adjudicate decisions on the reactor.
The aggressive response by the CNCS on the safety equipment is unusual for the commission, which is a regulator usually out of the public eye and frequently under attack by environmentalists who claim it is a toothless watchdog.
In recent years, there have been a number of high-profile difficulties at companies that have embarrassed the CNSC, ranging from a factory in Pembroke, Ont., that leaked radioactivity for years into the community before the regulator took strong action to curb its operations, to a discovery this summer that uranium had leaked into the ground under a CNSC-regulated plant in Port Hope, Ont., operated by Cameco Corp.
Globe and Mail