Closing of $40-M lab shocks Pinawa area

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This article was published 18/5/2003 (5691 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The imminent closing of a $40-million underground research laboratory near Pinawa has shocked local governments and employees.

"This came right came out of the blue," said Pinawa Mayor Len Simpson. "We thought AECL (Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd.) would make a serious attempt to keep this thing."

AECL, a federal Crown corporation, has announced it will close the underground lab at its Whiteshell complex at the end of June unless a last-minute buyer or tenant comes forward. Layoff notices have already been issued to 25 employees. AECL would not say if there will be further layoffs, but more are rumoured. About 45 people work in the lab.

The lab was used to study the structure and properties of granite rock found deep in the ground, and how groundwater might flow through it, to determine whether it could be safely used to store nuclear waste.

"There's no money available for us to operate it unless someone else comes along," said AECL spokesman Ian Dovey in a telephone interview from Mississauga, Ont., where AECL is headquartered.

MaryAnn Mihychuk, Manitoba's minister of Industry, Trade and Mines, has appealed to Ottawa to postpone the decision. But she has yet to receive a reply to her letter to federal Natural Resources Minister Herb Dhaliwal. She said the province needs more time to find a solution.

"(The closure) was decided very rapidly, with no transition time for us. We think it's unfair," Mihychuk said.

She met with AECL president Robert Van Adel six months ago. She said he told her AECL did not want to pursue privatizing the lab because it is too valuable an asset. "Then suddenly six months later, we get notice that the whole thing is going to be shut down," Mihychuk said.

Scrambling

Local governments, Manitoba's mining industry and Mihychuk's department are scrambling to find a tenant for the facility. They are trying to drum up new research contracts. They are also looking into whether the lab can be used as a training centre in the use of mining equipment such as muckers, or for research into mine construction.

The underground laboratory is in the RM of Lac du Bonnet, about 90 kilometres northeast of Winnipeg. Ottawa built the Pinawa lab in 1982 at a cost of about $40 million. Its deepest shaft is 420 metres, about the height of the CN Tower in Toronto.

"It is the finest underground lab in the world, many would argue," maintained Mihychuk, who has toured the facility twice.

The lab costs more than $3 million a year to maintain. "However, the revenues up to this point were bringing in $9 million to $10 million per year," Mihychuk said.

Ontario Power Generation, which provided 70 per cent of research funding at the Pinawa site, has pulled out. OPG, formerly called Ontario Hydro, said it has gone as far as it can with research there.

Lac du Bonnet Reeve Don Halbert questioned whether AECL tried hard enough to market the lab.

"When you're a Crown corporation fed by government coffers, it's not necessary to bust your hump the same as if you're private industry," Halbert said.

The underground lab is a division of the AECL research complex at Pinawa, which has been phasing down ever since the Crown corporation decided in 1994 to close it.

The lab has been a research site for clients from around the world.

bill.redekop@freepress.mb.ca