Opponents plan next step to stop Bruce Power shipments
By PAUL JANKOWSKI, Owen Sound SUN TIMES STAFF February 18 2011
Opponents on both sides of the Canada-U. S. border are continuing efforts to stop the shipment by Bruce Power of 16 decommissioned radioactive steam generators through the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Seaway.
Sierra Club Canada was to hold a conference call today to discuss a possible court appeal of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission’s Feb. 4 decision to grant Bruce Power a licence to transport the generators, which the company and CNSC consider low-level nuclear waste, to Sweden, John Bennett, the club’s executive director, said Thursday. The CNSC decision can be appealed to the Federal Court of Canada within 30 days of being handed down, according to Aurele Gervais, the spokesman for the commission.
“We don’t know exactly what the legal challenge will be, but lawyers I’ve talked to sort of preliminary all think there might be some grounds. The point of our conference (call) this week will be to discuss what the grounds might be and then who will actually join the action,” Bennett said. “If Sierra Club is reasonably convinced we have a reasonable chance we will undoubtedly be part of that. This fight’s not over by any means.”
Bennett said while the only avenue left to contest the plan in Canada is a court challenge, Sierra Club was working with “partners in the United States” who are focusing on the process there.
Bruce Power needs permission from regulators in the United States and Sweden before proceeding with its plans to send the huge generators, which weigh 100 tonnes each, to Studsvik Nuclear AB, in Nyköping, Sweden. Studsvik would separate and recycle the uncontaminated steel in the generators and return the rest, an estimated 10%, to Bruce Power for storage at the western waste management facility.
Both Bennett and the Canadian Environmental Law Association referred questions about the American approval process to Kevin Kamps, the radioactive waste watchdog of Beyond Nuclear, a non-profit organization based in Takoma Park, Maryland, a suburb of Washington DC.
Kamps said any approval would come from the Pipelines and Hazardous Material Safety Administration (PHMSA), which he called an “obscure agency” of the Department of Transportation.
“It’s little known actually. I’d never heard of it before this steam generator issue came up,” he said.
Kamps said opponents of Bruce Power’s plans in the U.S. would push for “full environmental impact statement hearing,” which would include public meetings and public comment process.
Whether one would be held, he couldn’t really say.
PHMSA has in the past decade or more approved “17 waterborne shipments of large radioactive nuclear components,” Kamps said. “Only one of them was on the Great Lakes. It was two steam generators . . . from northern Wisconsin down to Memphis, Te nnessee. So we assume it went through the waterways of Chicago, but definitely on Lake Michigan.”
Kamps said it was “our assumption, not having done the research yet . . . that PHMSA did a rudimentary environmental assessment and a quick finding of no significant impact, which is in our opinion very much a rubber stamp process” in its earlier approvals.
“Now they’ve got a large amount of attention on both sides of the border and to the best of our ability we’re not going to let them get away with a rubber stamp like that this time.”
“Part of the merit to our argument is they have issued these quick approvals of these past shipments without looking at the inherent risks of waterborne radioactive waste shipments, especially on the Great Lakes,” he said.
One of the concerns Beyond Nuclear has is the precedent the Bruce Power shipment would set, Kamps added. “It’s so large, 16 steam generators. It’s getting exemptions galore from ordinary standards. But it also is a precedent for much worse to follow, which would be high-level radioactive waste shipments.”
The Lake Michigan steam generator shipment is “a good cautionary tale” he said. “It took place in late 2001, it happened very, very quietly. I would even say secretly.” Environmental watchdogs were in the midst of fighting a proposal to set up a high-level radioactive repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada and on high alert for any nuclear shipments “and it went by us without anybody knowing about it. We didn’t find out about it until Bruce Power bragged about it. They said this is not unprecedented, what we’re about to do.”
David Ullrich, the Chicago-based director of the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Cities Initiative, said that group remains opposed to Bruce Power’s plans. He said he has so far been unable to obtain information from the U.S. Department of Transportation about its approval process “because they tell us they haven’t received an application yet.”
Bruce Power spokesman John Peevers said earlier this week that the company has yet to make its applications to American and Swedish regulators.
“We have been asked to appear before a parliamentary committee . . . to talk about the project, which we welcome. So right now we’re kind of focused on that. We see it as a good opportunity to tell the story and present scientific-based factual information.”
The House of Common’s standing committee on natural resources has set aside two days — March 8 and 10 — “to examine the decision of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) concerning the proposed shipment of 1,600 tonnes of radioactive steam generators by Bruce Power, the broader policy framework governing import and export of radioactive waste from Canadian territory, transport of radioactive waste through the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence River, and “recycling” of radioactive metal for free release into the marketplace,” according to the minutes of a committee meeting Nov. 10.
The committee has invited CNSC president Michael Binder, representatives of Bruce Power, Mayor Gaëtan Ruest of Amqui, Que. Ullrich, Patrick Madahbe, the Grand Council chief of the Union of Ontario Indians, and Gordon Edwards of the Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility to testify and others may yet be asked to attend, Andrew Lauzon, the clerk of the committee, said.
There has also been opposition in the U.K. to the shipment.
The Nuclear Free Local Authorities, an umbrella group that has received policy support from 75 local governments there, has expressed its “deep alarm” about the plan. “We don’t want them passing by our waters and putting our communities at risk. The waste should remain in Canada and be safely managed there,” NFLA chair Bailie George Regan was quoted as saying in announcing the launch of a campaign to stop the ship from passing through British waters.
Peevers said the ship carrying the generators would travel through “international waters” once it reached the Atlantic until it got to Swed
By PAUL JANKOWSKI, SUN TIMES STAFF February 18 2011
Opponents on both sides of the Canada-U. S. border are continuing efforts to stop the shipment by Bruce Power of 16 decommissioned radioactive steam generators through the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Seaway.
Sierra Club Canada was to hold a conference call today to discuss a possible court appeal of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission’s Feb. 4 decision to grant Bruce Power a licence to transport the generators, which the company and CNSC consider low-level nuclear waste, to Sweden, John Bennett, the club’s executive director, said Thursday. The CNSC decision can be appealed to the Federal Court of Canada within 30 days of being handed down, according to Aurele Gervais, the spokesman for the commission.
“We don’t know exactly what the legal challenge will be, but lawyers I’ve talked to sort of preliminary all think there might be some grounds. The point of our conference (call) this week will be to discuss what the grounds might be and then who will actually join the action,” Bennett said. “If Sierra Club is reasonably convinced we have a reasonable chance we will undoubtedly be part of that. This fight’s not over by any means.”
Bennett said while the only avenue left to contest the plan in Canada is a court challenge, Sierra Club was working with “partners in the United States” who are focusing on the process there.
Bruce Power needs permission from regulators in the United States and Sweden before proceeding with its plans to send the huge generators, which weigh 100 tonnes each, to Studsvik Nuclear AB, in Nyköping, Sweden. Studsvik would separate and recycle the uncontaminated steel in the generators and return the rest, an estimated 10%, to Bruce Power for storage at the western waste management facility.
Both Bennett and the Canadian Environmental Law Association referred questions about the American approval process to Kevin Kamps, the radioactive waste watchdog of Beyond Nuclear, a non-profit organization based in Takoma Park, Maryland, a suburb of Washington DC.
Kamps said any approval would come from the Pipelines and Hazardous Material Safety Administration (PHMSA), which he called an “obscure agency” of the Department of Transportation.
“It’s little known actually. I’d never heard of it before this steam generator issue came up,” he said.
Kamps said opponents of Bruce Power’s plans in the U.S. would push for “full environmental impact statement hearing,” which would include public meetings and public comment process.
Whether one would be held, he couldn’t really say.
PHMSA has in the past decade or more approved “17 waterborne shipments of large radioactive nuclear components,” Kamps said. “Only one of them was on the Great Lakes. It was two steam generators . . . from northern Wisconsin down to Memphis, Te nnessee. So we assume it went through the waterways of Chicago, but definitely on Lake Michigan.”
Kamps said it was “our assumption, not having done the research yet . . . that PHMSA did a rudimentary environmental assessment and a quick finding of no significant impact, which is in our opinion very much a rubber stamp process” in its earlier approvals.
“Now they’ve got a large amount of attention on both sides of the border and to the best of our ability we’re not going to let them get away with a rubber stamp like that this time.”
“Part of the merit to our argument is they have issued these quick approvals of these past shipments without looking at the inherent risks of waterborne radioactive waste shipments, especially on the Great Lakes,” he said.
One of the concerns Beyond Nuclear has is the precedent the Bruce Power shipment would set, Kamps added. “It’s so large, 16 steam generators. It’s getting exemptions galore from ordinary standards. But it also is a precedent for much worse to follow, which would be high-level radioactive waste shipments.”
The Lake Michigan steam generator shipment is “a good cautionary tale” he said. “It took place in late 2001, it happened very, very quietly. I would even say secretly.” Environmental watchdogs were in the midst of fighting a proposal to set up a high-level radioactive repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada and on high alert for any nuclear shipments “and it went by us without anybody knowing about it. We didn’t find out about it until Bruce Power bragged about it. They said this is not unprecedented, what we’re about to do.”
David Ullrich, the Chicago-based director of the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Cities Initiative, said that group remains opposed to Bruce Power’s plans. He said he has so far been unable to obtain information from the U.S. Department of Transportation about its approval process “because they tell us they haven’t received an application yet.”
Bruce Power spokesman John Peevers said earlier this week that the company has yet to make its applications to American and Swedish regulators.
“We have been asked to appear before a parliamentary committee . . . to talk about the project, which we welcome. So right now we’re kind of focused on that. We see it as a good opportunity to tell the story and present scientific-based factual information.”
The House of Common’s standing committee on natural resources has set aside two days — March 8 and 10 — “to examine the decision of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) concerning the proposed shipment of 1,600 tonnes of radioactive steam generators by Bruce Power, the broader policy framework governing import and export of radioactive waste from Canadian territory, transport of radioactive waste through the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence River, and “recycling” of radioactive metal for free release into the marketplace,” according to the minutes of a committee meeting Nov. 10.
The committee has invited CNSC president Michael Binder, representatives of Bruce Power, Mayor Gaëtan Ruest of Amqui, Que. Ullrich, Patrick Madahbe, the Grand Council chief of the Union of Ontario Indians, and Gordon Edwards of the Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility to testify and others may yet be asked to attend, Andrew Lauzon, the clerk of the committee, said.
There has also been opposition in the U.K. to the shipment.
The Nuclear Free Local Authorities, an umbrella group that has received policy support from 75 local governments there, has expressed its “deep alarm” about the plan. “We don’t want them passing by our waters and putting our communities at risk. The waste should remain in Canada and be safely managed there,” NFLA chair Bailie George Regan was quoted as saying in announcing the launch of a campaign to stop the ship from passing through British waters.
Peevers said the ship carrying the generators would travel through “international waters” once it reached the Atlantic until it got to Swed
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