Radioactive cargo worries mayor

Bruce Power officials outline plan to move low-level radioactive steam generators through city harbour
By Denis Langlois Owen Sound Sun Times July 14 2010
Mayor Ruth Lovell Stanners is dead against a plan by Bruce Power to load 16 low-level radioactive steam generators onto a ship in Owen Sound Harbour and ship them to Sweden, but it seems unlikely she can stop it. The Tiverton-based nuclear generation company requires only a heavy load permit from the city, which cannot be denied based on health and safety concerns unrelated to the actual transportation of the 100-tonne vessels through Owen Sound, said city manager Jim Harrold.
Bruce Power has already secured the support of Transport Canada, which owns the harbour, conditional upon the approval of a licence from the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission. An application is now before the CNSC.
It would be the first time a licence has been issued to ship nuclear waste across the Great Lakes.
Bruce Power spokesman Ross Lamont suggested to council that the city would be in a legal fight if it refuses to issue the heavy-load permit, based on concerns with storing the steam generators by the harbour and shipping them out of Owen Sound.
“I find life is a lot simpler when we don’t use lawyers. I would hope we would have a fulsome discussion as to why,” he told council after being asked what would happen if the city said no.
He said Bruce Power has no alternate plan to shipping the generators out of Owen Sound Harbour. Other harbours, including one in Goderich, have been ruled out.
Lovell Stanners would also require the support of her council colleagues to stop the plan.
Owen Sound councillors Peter Lemon and Tom Pink said they support Bruce Power’s proposal.
Lemon said he is more concerned about invasive aquatic species, such as zebra mussels, hitching a ride on the ocean-going vessel and remaining in harbour than the risks of the low-level radioactive waste.
Other councillors wanted more information.
 Lamont laid out for council Bruce Power’s plan to ship the school bus-sized, decommissioned generators from its Tiverton site to the Owen Sound harbour.
The steel vessels will be loaded one by one onto a docked ship — about the same size as the Chi-Cheemaun — over three weeks, starting in mid-September, and then shipped to a recycling facility in Sweden.
Lovell Stanners said she is concerned about the impact the steam generators might have on the health and safety of Owen Sound residents. She questioned what would happen if one were to fall into the harbour.
“The more that I have learned, the less I am comfortable with this plan at all,” she said during the meeting.
Lamont said Bruce Power has chosen to ship the steam generators to Sweden to reduce the amount of waste that will be stored at the Bruce site property. About 90% of the generators’ metal will be melted down in Sweden for reuse and the rest will be shipped back to Canada and stored as low-level nuclear waste.
He said the generators will be welded shut and will not pose a danger to the public or environment. There will be a protected, guarded staging area in Owen Sound, he said.
Bruce Power changed its plan to store the generators at the harbour for five weeks. Now, the plan is to load them on an awaiting ship over three weeks. The longest one will be stored along the harbour will be one night, Lamont said.
He said standing next to one of the generators for two hours will deliver no more radiation than a chest X-ray.
Bruce Power plans to ship another 16 generators across the Great Lakes, as part of the refurbishment of Units 1 and 2, in a few years. More will be shipped through Owen Sound as other units are refurbished.
Bruce Power is holding a public meeting July 27 at 5 p.m. at the Grey Bruce Health Unit building. It is also holding meetings in Saugeen Shores and at its visitor centre.
The only decision council made on Bruce Power’s plan Monday was to approve a motion by Coun. Bill Twaddle to invite medical officer of health Dr. Hazel Lynn to speak to council about it. Lamont said she is supportive.
Bruce Power must submit its application for a heavy load permit to Owen Sound within 30 days of the shipments.
Several anti-nuclear and environmental groups are circulating a petition to oppose Bruce Power’s plan. Sarnia Mayor Mike Bradley and two state representatives from Michigan are among the people who have signed so far.
Gordon Edwards, president of the Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility, said it is “foolish” to ship the steam generators, which have 5,000 corroded pipes inside, on the Great Lakes.
“The danger is that accidents do happen,” he said.
“There’s lots of radioactive junk inside those steam generators. In fact, Bruce Power doesn’t even know the complete inventory of the radioactive material inside because it’s impossible to measure from the outside and no one wants to go inside because it’s too dangerous.
“If this material were to somehow find a pathway out into the environment, through either a puncture or a crack or just to corrosion, then you have this material leaking into the Great Lakes.”
Shipping the generators across the Great Lakes also sets precedence, he said, for larger and more dangerous shipments.