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SRB Technologies is back in the beta light business.
Four weeks and a day since the public hearing on the matter, the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission agreed to amend the company’s possession licence, which will permit it to accept tritium-filled light sources at its Boundary Road site.
This will allow SRBT to stay in the business of selling self-generating lights.
In its decision released Friday, the CNSC said during a one-day hearing held April 12, it considered written submissions and oral presentations from SRBT and CNSC staff as well as those from 79 intervenors.
After doing so, it decided to permit the amendment to the company’s Nuclear Substance Processing Facility Possession Licence.
“The commission concluded that SRBT is qualified to carry on the activities that the amended licence will authorize and that it will make adequate provision for the protection of the environment, the health and safety of persons and the maintenance of national security and measures required to implement international obligations to which Canada has agreed,” it states.
For staff and management at SRB Technologies, waiting for this decision has been the hardest part.
Stephane Levesque, SRBT president, said since the processing licence was not renewed, times have been very difficult for him, his staff, their families and our customers.
“We have continued to supply some of our customers using the lights that we have in stock but had to lay off more than half of our workforce,” he said. “Some of these employees had been working for SRB for a number of years and it was extremely difficult to let them go.”
Mr. Levesque thanked everyone who supported the company during this trying time and said this decision allows the company to fill orders for its glow-in-the-dark products, while obeying the conditions of the possession licence.
“We are relieved to receive the approval of the amendment of our licence from the Commission,” he said. “The amendment will allow receipt of tritium-filled light sources from other facilities for sale to our customers.”
Mr. Levesque said this approval will provide job security for some of the employees and will ensure an ongoing revenue stream to help fund the facility’s financial guarantee – money set aside to cover the cost of decommissioning the site – as well as further environmental studies.
The amendment will also allow SRBT to honour important contracts with high national security value and for which SRB is the sole supplier.
Mr. Levesque said only 15 of the 36 employees at the Pembroke facility are currently on the job, the rest being laid off. Now that the amendment has been accepted by the CNSC, it will allow SRBT to call back some of these workers.
“We still don’t know at this point how many we’ll be able to call back or how soon,” he said, but they will be looking carefully at their manpower needs as soon as possible.
SRBT has been the subject of controversy since tritium contamination was detected in groundwater within the neighbourhood of the facility, with levels fluctuating between 2 bq/L off site to 156,000 bq/L beside the stacks on the property, often blamed as the source. The legislated safe standard for drinking water in Ontario is 7,000 bq/L
Operations at the company essentially ceased at the end of January after its operating licence renewal application had been turned down by the commission.
At the time, the CNSC stated it wasn’t satisfied the company was doing its best to monitor and correct the problem. In its opinion “SRBT has not demonstrated that it has made nor will it make adequate provision for the protection of the environment while carrying on the activities that an operating licence would authorize, specifically the processing of tritium.”
In its place, the commission granted the company an 18-month possession licence, which allows SRBT to store tritium on site, but not process the radioactive gas.
The amendment just approved to this possession licence will allow the company to stay in business by permitting it to send its products to other licensed companies to fill with tritium, then return them to SRBT, which would assemble the items for delivery to its customers. This will give the company the time to get its processing licence back, plus have a source of revenue to make the changes to its operations to satisfy the CNSC.
When contacted, Kelly O’Grady of the Concerned Citizens of Renfrew County said she was disappointed in the decision, but declined further comment. She explained the group needed time to read the documentation backing the CNSC’s decision before issuing a statement.
The Concerned Citizens group has been the most vocal opponent to SRBT and its operations and has stated publicly it would be satisfied with nothing less than the company’s complete shut down. suhler@thedailyobserver.ca
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