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The future of SRB Technologies now hinges on whether the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission approves changes to its current licence.
Following a half-day hearing, the nuclear regulatory body is holding off on a decision whether or not to amend the Pembroke company’s possession licence, which would permit it to accept tritium-filled light sources at the site.
Operations at the company essentially ceased at the end of January after its operating licence renewal was rejected by the commission. CNSC president Linda Keen said it will inform all interested parties soon whether it needs more information to proceed, or if it can make the decision on the licence amendment based on Thursday’s hearing.
The 18-month licence SRBT is now under lets it possess tritium, but not process the radioactive gas.
The suggested amendment would let the company stay in business by allowing 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 also buy it time to get its operating licence back.
Stephane Levesque, SRBT president, said a decision in the company’s favour would allow it to fill orders for its glow-in-the-dark products, while obeying the conditions of the possession licence.
“It is imperative this goes forward to ensure the survival of the company,” he said.
“The only source of revenue is the sale of tritium light sources.”
The funding generated will allow SRBT to meet the requirements of its current possession licence, including environmental studies and monitoring, enhanced safety programs, saving for its financial guarantee to cover future decommissioning costs and to ensure job security for its employees.
Mr. Levesque said only 17 of the 36 employees at the Pembroke facility are currently on the job, the rest being laid off.
If the amendment is accepted by the CNSC, it will allow SRBT to call back some of these workers.
“This has been extremely difficult for the company, the staff and their families,” Mr. Levesque said. “We’re going to continue to work hard and prove to the CNSC we can satisfy their requirements.”
SRBT, located on Boundary Road, has been the subject of controversy since tritium contamination was detected in groundwater in 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 itself, often blamed as the source.
The legislated safe standard for drinking water in Ontario is 7,000 bq/L.
The company lost its bid to have its operating licence renewed at the end of January after the CNSC decided 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 the site and keep the building open.
This allowed the company time to consider its next move, which had been to apply for this licence amendment.
At the commission hearing, Mr. Levesque argued the amendment represents a minor change to the current licence and won’t need any changes from the way SRBT has been operating.
“These procedures are already in place and in use as authorized by our existing licence,” he said.
CNSC staff agreed and recommended the commission grant the amendment in favour of SRBT.
It concluded the company is capable of handling this and determined the increased risk to the environment over the life of the (18-month) licence “would not be unreasonable.”
This cut no ice with the Concerned Citizens of Renfrew County, the nuclear watchdog which has opposed SRBT’s operations for years.
The group doesn’t want the company to have anything to do with tritium, which it states has shown it can’t be trusted with handling it.
The sole intervener present – public consultation had been restricted to 79 written submissions – the CCRC tried to have the hearings stopped on a number of matters, the main one being lack of time to allow for proper public consultation.
Joe Castrilli, the CCRC’s solicitor and counsel with the Canadian Environmental Law Association, said his client would like to see the hearing postponed to allow for enough time to make informed oral presentations, or the commission could proceed today and schedule, at a later date, a second hearing for oral submissions from the public.
After hearing from Mr. Castrilli and inviting Mr. Levesque to respond, the commission retired briefly to consider the request.
The CNSC returned to turn the application down.
Concerned Citizens representatives Ole Hendrickson and Kelly O’Grady both stated they were less than impressed with the day’s proceedings.
“This wasn’t really a public hearing at all,” Ms. O’Grady said.
“There was no opportunity for the public to be heard.”
Mr. Hendrickson agreed, saying it is hard to have a proper discussion when only CNSC staff and the licensee are permitted to speak.
“There were a lot of interveners who are not in support of SRBT’s application,” he said. “But their concerns were not really discussed,” as these were restricted to written submissions only.
The Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission is expected to hand down its decision on SRBT’s application in the near future.
suhler@thedailyobserver.ca