Nuclear site oversight needed

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 01/12/2023 (673 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

An eight-month interruption at Manitoba’s largest toxic waste facility near Pinawa is calling into question whether Canadians are getting value for their money and whether a very lavish government contract should be continued.

The consortium charged with decommissioning Whiteshell labs, which contains extremely dangerous high-level radioactive waste, has had its licence paused since April and is now facing a monetary penalty for not following safety procedures.

The Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) has levied a fine of $14,860 for non-compliance with the Nuclear Safety and Control Act. Representatives from CNSC have publicly stated that there is a problem with the culture of the decommissioning organization. They also believe the fine will prevent such incompetence from occurring again.

Considering it is .001 per cent of what they receive from the federal government for decommissioning, the fine is not likely to challenge their bottom line nor is it likely to produce significant changes.

The contractors known as Canadian Nuclear Labs (CNL) are no other than SNC Lavalin (a.k.a. Real Atkins), and two American engineering firms, Jacobs and Fluor. Their contract to “clean” up sites across Canada has been rising over the years and parliamentary appropriations for this purpose have ranged from $800 million to $1.2 billion annually. The existing contract expires in September 2025 and it is clear CNL have not met their contractual obligations.

The overwhelming extent of their deficiencies led the president of the CNSC to express suspicions about their competence and her organization’s oversight. Targets were conceived in 2019 and by 2023 all high-level waste was to be removed and shipped to Chalk River. In addition, all nuclear waste in standpipes was to have been retrieved. None of this has been achieved and yet the money continues to flow.

Whiteshell Labs is a nuclear site on the Winnipeg River that dates back over 60 years to the halcyon days of nuclear power where it was predicted that energy from fission reactors would be “too cheap to meter.”

The wastes produced there are distributed throughout the facility and contained in concrete canisters, bunkers, unlined trenches, standpipes and ponds. There is the core of the experimental WR1 reactor and various other hazardous areas on site.

The remediation of the grounds was originally going to return much of the land to greenfield status, but the contractors have changed plans, arguing that a substantial proportion of the waste may have to remain in situ, or where it lies, because it is too dangerous and expensive to move.

When plans are scaled back to such an extent, and operations have ground to a halt, a thorough audit of the contract seems reasonable. Essentially if the in situ plan is approved: it will result in this radioactive mess being monitored and placed under high security for generations to come. Like it or not, Manitoba will own the results of these nasty practices of the past.

In another rose-coloured glasses scenario, there is a proposal by CNL to fill the remains of the now defunct WR 1 reactor with a type of concrete in hopes that it will entomb the radioactivity from the river for thousands of years. The concrete will be subject to Manitoba’s extreme weather conditions and the scheme is fraught with questions about its viability.

This scheme was to have received regulatory approval by now and may never come to fruition considering entombment is not an acceptable strategy according to the International Atomic Energy Agency.

All of this is occurring without a comprehensive review by provincial officials, who disbanded their Technical Advisory Committee (TAC), in favour of occasional briefings as they trusted the contractors were doing their job.

Considering the potential effects on Manitoba’s environment, a degree of scrutiny over these unbridled and shoddy procedures is well within provincial jurisdiction. Premier Wab Kinew would be wise to reinstate this provincial committee and hold federal authorities to account for their actions in handling Manitoba’s field of poison.

Our Pinawa site has revealed that nuclear power is neither clean or green and that the federal government appears to be getting fleeced on this deal. Decommissioning of the site next to the Winnipeg River has to be undertaken by a competent organization with a robust plan under the watchful eye of our provincial environment department.

Dave Taylor is a frequent contributor to the Free Press on environmental issues.