McNamara: Presentation to CNSC Hearings on Port Hope
Posted: Thu Jan 19, 2012 12:20 pmMcNAMARA: Presentation to the CNSC Hearings - January 18, 2012
http://www.nuclearsafety.gc.ca/eng/commission/pdf/
2012-01-18-19-PublicHearingsUpdatedAgenda12-H1A.pdf
Presentation To the CNSC Commissioners and the CNSC staff, thank you for allowing me to speak today,
HELLO FRIENDS AND FOES IN PORT HOPE!!!
Port Hope will never lose its nuclear stigma until the waste is cleaned up and the nuclear facilities are shut down
If I was only allowed one sentence today, that would be it.
Port Hope will never lose its nuclear stigma until the waste is cleaned up and the nuclear facilities are shut down. If Cameco stays, there will always be divisions in the community and a national media ready to exploit it. There will always be a stigma.
Know that with certainty! Know it before you contemplate any further decisions on Cameco’s fate. You have to decide today whether you honestly want to rid Port Hope of its stigma and then take steps accordingly.
They wouldn’t have built this facility on this location in 1942 if it wasn’t for the presence of the bankrupt radium processing facility on the waterfront. It was expedient to take over the buildings. But the mistake was never corrected.
The 1978 document prepared by Eldorado Nuclear Limited titled “Environmental Impact Statement for a UF6 Refinery in Hope Township” states: “A major factor in selecting specific refinery sites is the accepted industrial practice of placing a “buffer zone” around nuclear facilities as required by the federal government’s regulatory agency, the Atomic Energy Control Board”.
Our nuclear regulator grossly contravened its rules and its mandate by allowing the UF6 plant to be built in the middle of Port Hope without any buffer zone. Our supposed protector illegally compounded Port Hope’s problems.
Minister Oliver finally took an appropriate step last week by topping up the Port Hope Area Initiative fund to more than a billion and a half dollars. It was a welcome, though belated admission that the cost of cleaning up radioactive waste in Port Hope was severely underestimated a decade ago. The current project funding is six times higher than the original cost estimate.
At about the same time, the same people came up with a cost of $80 million to decommission Cameco’s waterfront facility in Port Hope. Assuming they erred by a factor of six as with the PHAI cleanup, Cameco’s decommissioning should cost around $480 million.
When John Morand raised this discrepancy on the first day of the hearing, the CNSCs Mr. Elder explained that the cost of Cameco’s decommissioning would not increase commensurate with the PHAI because most of Cameco’s waste is made up of buildings, not soil. However, that statement hasn’t been true since contamination was discovered under the UF6 building, shortly after Cameco’s last license renewal.
Toxins were measured at depth but Cameco only removed the top two feet of material. They covered the contamination with a new concrete floor and chemical-resistant coating. Cameco admitted that contaminants were left under the slab.
Cameco’s staunchest supporter, the Port Hope Evening Guide was livid at this completely inappropriate solution and stated so. “"This answer is unacceptable. If there is more contamination under the building then tear it down and get it all now, not 30 years from now when the site is decommissioned. Surely some of the millions Cameco is expected to spend on its Vision 2010 plan to clean up and enhance its lakefront facility might be better spent on ensuring all the contamination under the UF6 plant is removed."
"The CNSC is the federal authority charged with protecting Canadians and the environment from any harm that could stem from nuclear-related activities. Do your job." (Editorial, Port Hope Evening Guide, 2008)
The sub-slab toxins can easily migrate toward the lake or down as far as fifty feet to the base of the pilings holding up the building as the whole thing sits on granular material (beach sand). If all the material down to bedrock has to be removed, it would substantially increase the volume of Cameco’s cleanup and send the costs soaring, the same as we’ve seen for the PHAI. Excavation of contaminated soil under their buildings would be expensive as the lake itself may have to be contained in places.
A similar type of cleanup of buildings and soil, though three times the volume, at Fernald Ohio cost $4.4 billion. Extrapolating these figures onto Cameco’s situation would show a cost of just under one and a half billion dollars. Mr. Morand’s half a billion figure may turn out to be a “low ball” estimate.
I was dismayed to find out yesterday that Cameco’s decommissioning plan is being kept away from the public. This should be made available to us to see if the cleanup they propose is adequate to meet the community’s needs. Further, the community needs this information to determine if the security being held by the CNSC is adequate to finance the decommissioning.
Q: I’d like to ask the Commissioners to find out the specific amount of security Cameco has on deposit with the CNSC to remediate their Port Hope Waterfront site. I would also ask the Commissioners to compel Cameco to provide us with the decommissioning plan they submitted to the CNSC to allow us to subject it to civilian oversight. Considering Cameco has been unable to plan and implement any of their Vision 2010 master-plan, we have little faith in their abilities and intentions regarding a responsible decommissioning of their facilities.
It appears Vision 2010 was a misnomer. As the farmers would say, all the talk and promises and still no lipstick on the pig after six years. The plans to beautify the waterfront fizzled right along with the nuclear renaissance in Canada.
The renaissance was already collapsing when heavy water leaks at AECL’s NRU reactor shut down the production of isotopes again in May 2009.
AECL’s $13 billion per reactor quotes shocked the Ontario government and ended all discussions about them.
AECL went over time and budget refurbishing Point Lepreau
AECL went over time and budget refurbishing the South Korean reactors costing Canadian taxpayers $200 million
Bruce Power’s refurbishment was late and almost 100% over budget
Bruce Power contaminated over 500 employees and contractors with alpha radiation
The Canadian government had to pay SNC Lavalin $75 million to take AECL off its hands for $15 million.
And best of all, the farmers, the youth and the Mama Bear Housewives in northern Alberta chased Bruce Power out of the province. A sincere thank you to the easterners who helped us out; notably Dr. Gordon Edwards. Dr. Edward’s daily updates and the mountain of nuclear-related information on his website are invaluable tools to communities coming to terms with a technology they know nothing about.
If anyone still has visions of a nuclear renaissance in Canada, they were put to rest when Fukushima started spreading its toxic legacy around the globe. There is no nuclear renaissance in Canada. Please don’t delude yourselves any longer.
I’ve asked the Commissioners for the size of Cameco’s security deposit with the CNSC and their decommissioning plan. It’s important that we have this information to protect ourselves and our community, as we’ve shown ourselves capable of doing in the past.
The investigations and research by community members in preparation for the February 2005 Mid-Term licence reviews revealed a shocking situation in Port Hope.
- There was no evacuation and shelter plan in place
- There was no comprehensive warning system in case of an accident at Cameco
- We were unable to fight radiological fires
- Our emergency response staff had inadequate chemical training
- Our local hospital could not deal with anything beyond a minor accident
- There was minimal security at both nuclear facilities
- There were no armed response capabilities
- There was no risk analysis of the potential for terrorist attack or its consequences
- There was no commitment from the Province to provide resources in an accident.
In retrospect, Cameco is justifiably proud of the improvements they’ve made to fire protection in Port Hope since 2005. The community is much safer and, acknowledged as such by all sides of the debate. Cameco should be commended for stepping up to the plate.
An equal measure of respect and gratitude should be accorded the residents who exposed the shortcomings of Port Hope’s fire fighting capabilities and forced the improvements on the industry. The validity of the concerns we have raised over the years, has been proven and acted upon.
Listen to what the residents have to say. Port Hope will never lose its nuclear stigma until the waste is cleaned up and the nuclear facilities are shut down.
Where is the logic and justification for spending one and a half billion dollars to clean up Port Hope and allow the source of the current contamination to continue operating?
I had a candid and pleasant hour-long conversation with Cameco’s Andy Thorne at the Fall Fair last year. We spent zero time talking about the relative merits of nuclear power.
At his request, I sent Mr. Thorne a ten page letter explaining the events that shaped our position. I included the following anecdote to illustrate the complex relationships that exist in Port Hope and that some of the issues we raised were brought to us by Cameco’s employees.
One of Cameco’s engineers and I were sitting on the patio at the Beamish House when we first heard the news that Cameco pulled the plug on the SEU project. After grudging but sincere congratulations, he said: “I was really hoping this would go through because the company might spend the money to change the bag filters on the UO2 building”. He went on to explain that the UO2 building was responsible for about 80% of the U emissions for 20% of Port Hope production while 80% of product made in the UF6 plant caused only 20% of U emissions. The UO2 plant was discharging 16 times as much U per unit of product as the UF6 plant. In other words, if the bag filters on the UO2 plant were as efficient as those on the UF6 facility, overall U emissions would have decreased by 75%. It was pretty hard to sell us on the merits of regulating according to the ALARA principle after we found this out.
I have a two-part question on this morning’s proceedings concerning Canada’s role in the weapons programs of other countries. Mr. Binder closed off discussion when he read a note he was given saying Canada had first signed the agreement prohibiting weapons related uses in 1955. Most people were left believing that Canada had nothing to do with any munitions related materials since then.
To clarify, when did Canada quit supplying plutonium to the United States and when did Cameco stop manufacturing DU components which it admitted to in the review of the SEU proposal?
There is no need to debate technical details any longer. No one would support the facility being built there today. The evidence against it is overwhelmingly beyond reproach. The nuclear regulator had to break its own regulations to allow the UF6 plant into Port Hope in the 1980s. Given the recent funding commitment from the Canadian government to clean up the waste, your decision today is whether you will do your part to remove the stigma from Port Hope.
I’d like to close today with an example of how destructive even a small amount of radioactive material can be. While researching Eldorado, I came across the radium production figures from 1932 until it went bankrupt in 1940. Less than four and a half ounces of radium were reclaimed from the thousands of tons of radioactive ore. If it wasn’t for that four and a half ounces of radium, Canada’s nuclear industry would never have desecrated Port Hope the way it did. It’s time to undo the damage
Port Hope will never lose its nuclear stigma until the waste is cleaned up and the nuclear facilities are shut down.
Pat McNamara
Former Resident of Port Hope, ON
http://www.nuclearsafety.gc.ca/eng/commission/pdf/
2012-01-18-19-PublicHearingsUpdatedAgenda12-H1A.pdf
Presentation To the CNSC Commissioners and the CNSC staff, thank you for allowing me to speak today,
HELLO FRIENDS AND FOES IN PORT HOPE!!!
Port Hope will never lose its nuclear stigma until the waste is cleaned up and the nuclear facilities are shut down
If I was only allowed one sentence today, that would be it.
Port Hope will never lose its nuclear stigma until the waste is cleaned up and the nuclear facilities are shut down. If Cameco stays, there will always be divisions in the community and a national media ready to exploit it. There will always be a stigma.
Know that with certainty! Know it before you contemplate any further decisions on Cameco’s fate. You have to decide today whether you honestly want to rid Port Hope of its stigma and then take steps accordingly.
They wouldn’t have built this facility on this location in 1942 if it wasn’t for the presence of the bankrupt radium processing facility on the waterfront. It was expedient to take over the buildings. But the mistake was never corrected.
The 1978 document prepared by Eldorado Nuclear Limited titled “Environmental Impact Statement for a UF6 Refinery in Hope Township” states: “A major factor in selecting specific refinery sites is the accepted industrial practice of placing a “buffer zone” around nuclear facilities as required by the federal government’s regulatory agency, the Atomic Energy Control Board”.
Our nuclear regulator grossly contravened its rules and its mandate by allowing the UF6 plant to be built in the middle of Port Hope without any buffer zone. Our supposed protector illegally compounded Port Hope’s problems.
Minister Oliver finally took an appropriate step last week by topping up the Port Hope Area Initiative fund to more than a billion and a half dollars. It was a welcome, though belated admission that the cost of cleaning up radioactive waste in Port Hope was severely underestimated a decade ago. The current project funding is six times higher than the original cost estimate.
At about the same time, the same people came up with a cost of $80 million to decommission Cameco’s waterfront facility in Port Hope. Assuming they erred by a factor of six as with the PHAI cleanup, Cameco’s decommissioning should cost around $480 million.
When John Morand raised this discrepancy on the first day of the hearing, the CNSCs Mr. Elder explained that the cost of Cameco’s decommissioning would not increase commensurate with the PHAI because most of Cameco’s waste is made up of buildings, not soil. However, that statement hasn’t been true since contamination was discovered under the UF6 building, shortly after Cameco’s last license renewal.
Toxins were measured at depth but Cameco only removed the top two feet of material. They covered the contamination with a new concrete floor and chemical-resistant coating. Cameco admitted that contaminants were left under the slab.
Cameco’s staunchest supporter, the Port Hope Evening Guide was livid at this completely inappropriate solution and stated so. “"This answer is unacceptable. If there is more contamination under the building then tear it down and get it all now, not 30 years from now when the site is decommissioned. Surely some of the millions Cameco is expected to spend on its Vision 2010 plan to clean up and enhance its lakefront facility might be better spent on ensuring all the contamination under the UF6 plant is removed."
"The CNSC is the federal authority charged with protecting Canadians and the environment from any harm that could stem from nuclear-related activities. Do your job." (Editorial, Port Hope Evening Guide, 2008)
The sub-slab toxins can easily migrate toward the lake or down as far as fifty feet to the base of the pilings holding up the building as the whole thing sits on granular material (beach sand). If all the material down to bedrock has to be removed, it would substantially increase the volume of Cameco’s cleanup and send the costs soaring, the same as we’ve seen for the PHAI. Excavation of contaminated soil under their buildings would be expensive as the lake itself may have to be contained in places.
A similar type of cleanup of buildings and soil, though three times the volume, at Fernald Ohio cost $4.4 billion. Extrapolating these figures onto Cameco’s situation would show a cost of just under one and a half billion dollars. Mr. Morand’s half a billion figure may turn out to be a “low ball” estimate.
I was dismayed to find out yesterday that Cameco’s decommissioning plan is being kept away from the public. This should be made available to us to see if the cleanup they propose is adequate to meet the community’s needs. Further, the community needs this information to determine if the security being held by the CNSC is adequate to finance the decommissioning.
Q: I’d like to ask the Commissioners to find out the specific amount of security Cameco has on deposit with the CNSC to remediate their Port Hope Waterfront site. I would also ask the Commissioners to compel Cameco to provide us with the decommissioning plan they submitted to the CNSC to allow us to subject it to civilian oversight. Considering Cameco has been unable to plan and implement any of their Vision 2010 master-plan, we have little faith in their abilities and intentions regarding a responsible decommissioning of their facilities.
It appears Vision 2010 was a misnomer. As the farmers would say, all the talk and promises and still no lipstick on the pig after six years. The plans to beautify the waterfront fizzled right along with the nuclear renaissance in Canada.
The renaissance was already collapsing when heavy water leaks at AECL’s NRU reactor shut down the production of isotopes again in May 2009.
AECL’s $13 billion per reactor quotes shocked the Ontario government and ended all discussions about them.
AECL went over time and budget refurbishing Point Lepreau
AECL went over time and budget refurbishing the South Korean reactors costing Canadian taxpayers $200 million
Bruce Power’s refurbishment was late and almost 100% over budget
Bruce Power contaminated over 500 employees and contractors with alpha radiation
The Canadian government had to pay SNC Lavalin $75 million to take AECL off its hands for $15 million.
And best of all, the farmers, the youth and the Mama Bear Housewives in northern Alberta chased Bruce Power out of the province. A sincere thank you to the easterners who helped us out; notably Dr. Gordon Edwards. Dr. Edward’s daily updates and the mountain of nuclear-related information on his website are invaluable tools to communities coming to terms with a technology they know nothing about.
If anyone still has visions of a nuclear renaissance in Canada, they were put to rest when Fukushima started spreading its toxic legacy around the globe. There is no nuclear renaissance in Canada. Please don’t delude yourselves any longer.
I’ve asked the Commissioners for the size of Cameco’s security deposit with the CNSC and their decommissioning plan. It’s important that we have this information to protect ourselves and our community, as we’ve shown ourselves capable of doing in the past.
The investigations and research by community members in preparation for the February 2005 Mid-Term licence reviews revealed a shocking situation in Port Hope.
- There was no evacuation and shelter plan in place
- There was no comprehensive warning system in case of an accident at Cameco
- We were unable to fight radiological fires
- Our emergency response staff had inadequate chemical training
- Our local hospital could not deal with anything beyond a minor accident
- There was minimal security at both nuclear facilities
- There were no armed response capabilities
- There was no risk analysis of the potential for terrorist attack or its consequences
- There was no commitment from the Province to provide resources in an accident.
In retrospect, Cameco is justifiably proud of the improvements they’ve made to fire protection in Port Hope since 2005. The community is much safer and, acknowledged as such by all sides of the debate. Cameco should be commended for stepping up to the plate.
An equal measure of respect and gratitude should be accorded the residents who exposed the shortcomings of Port Hope’s fire fighting capabilities and forced the improvements on the industry. The validity of the concerns we have raised over the years, has been proven and acted upon.
Listen to what the residents have to say. Port Hope will never lose its nuclear stigma until the waste is cleaned up and the nuclear facilities are shut down.
Where is the logic and justification for spending one and a half billion dollars to clean up Port Hope and allow the source of the current contamination to continue operating?
I had a candid and pleasant hour-long conversation with Cameco’s Andy Thorne at the Fall Fair last year. We spent zero time talking about the relative merits of nuclear power.
At his request, I sent Mr. Thorne a ten page letter explaining the events that shaped our position. I included the following anecdote to illustrate the complex relationships that exist in Port Hope and that some of the issues we raised were brought to us by Cameco’s employees.
One of Cameco’s engineers and I were sitting on the patio at the Beamish House when we first heard the news that Cameco pulled the plug on the SEU project. After grudging but sincere congratulations, he said: “I was really hoping this would go through because the company might spend the money to change the bag filters on the UO2 building”. He went on to explain that the UO2 building was responsible for about 80% of the U emissions for 20% of Port Hope production while 80% of product made in the UF6 plant caused only 20% of U emissions. The UO2 plant was discharging 16 times as much U per unit of product as the UF6 plant. In other words, if the bag filters on the UO2 plant were as efficient as those on the UF6 facility, overall U emissions would have decreased by 75%. It was pretty hard to sell us on the merits of regulating according to the ALARA principle after we found this out.
I have a two-part question on this morning’s proceedings concerning Canada’s role in the weapons programs of other countries. Mr. Binder closed off discussion when he read a note he was given saying Canada had first signed the agreement prohibiting weapons related uses in 1955. Most people were left believing that Canada had nothing to do with any munitions related materials since then.
To clarify, when did Canada quit supplying plutonium to the United States and when did Cameco stop manufacturing DU components which it admitted to in the review of the SEU proposal?
There is no need to debate technical details any longer. No one would support the facility being built there today. The evidence against it is overwhelmingly beyond reproach. The nuclear regulator had to break its own regulations to allow the UF6 plant into Port Hope in the 1980s. Given the recent funding commitment from the Canadian government to clean up the waste, your decision today is whether you will do your part to remove the stigma from Port Hope.
I’d like to close today with an example of how destructive even a small amount of radioactive material can be. While researching Eldorado, I came across the radium production figures from 1932 until it went bankrupt in 1940. Less than four and a half ounces of radium were reclaimed from the thousands of tons of radioactive ore. If it wasn’t for that four and a half ounces of radium, Canada’s nuclear industry would never have desecrated Port Hope the way it did. It’s time to undo the damage
Port Hope will never lose its nuclear stigma until the waste is cleaned up and the nuclear facilities are shut down.
Pat McNamara
Former Resident of Port Hope, ON