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Ottawa city staff is reassuring residents their drinking water is safe after low levels of radioactivity were detected in shipments of biosolids from the region’s sewage treatment plant.
“It’s important to understand the levels that have been detected are very low,” said Dixon Weir, the city’s director of water and wastewater services.
Two loads of the material, which were being sent to a New York company for composting, were stopped at the border because radioactive levels were too high. Two more truckloads of the sludge have also tested positive.
Experts are now working to find the source of the problem, which is the first of its kind at the east Ottawa sewage treatment plant.
So far, a hazardous materials team has not found any levels of radioactivity at the Robert O. Pickard treatment centre.
“The city took the precaution (Tuesday) afternoon to quarantine a couple of vehicles full of biosolids. Hazmat has had a look at those two vehicles as well and have been unable to find radioactive levels above background,” Weir said.
In the meantime, city officials insist the quality of the city’s drinking water is safe.
“The city sampling program for drinking water occurs upstream of the Pickard centre. It’s a very detailed program and we’ve gone back and looked through December and January records for gross alpha, gross beta and tritium and have not detected variations of significance there,” Weir said.
Still, Ottawa’s river keeper says residents need answers about where the radioactive material came from.
“Of course the first thing is coming to everyone’s mind is Chalk River because there’s been radioactivity in the news and a leak at that site,” said Meredith Brown.
Atomic Energy of Canada Limited has confirmed a radioactive leak occurred at the Chalk River, Ont. plant in early December.
While workers at the facility were able to stop the leak, they were unable to determine its cause.
Local MP David McGuinty is also concerned about the possible link to leaks at Chalk River’s nuclear plant.
“The minister has refused to tell us how much radioactive tritium was released at Chalk River. She has refused to tell us what she was told on Dec. 6th. She will not even tell us what the status of the leak is, nor its cause,” said McGuinty, who represents Ottawa South.
“And she will not explain why over a week after these leaks began, she informed Canadians that isotope production was reliable. What is reliable about producing isotopes in a facility while it is leaking radioactive water?”
The minister of natural resources, however, says the government has been assured the public’s health was not compromised because of the leaks.
“The Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission has assured me that at no time was the public or the environment at risk and there is no radioactive material leaking into the Ottawa River. These are very important facts. The health and safety of Canadians has always been our number one priority and will continue to be so,” said Lisa Raitt.
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