Blue Box for nukes?

Bruce Power has posted a response to our letter writing campaign questioning the transport of 16 old steam generators from the Bruce plant on Lake Huron to Sweden. These generators would be transported by road from Kincardine to Owen Sound and then shipped through Lake Huron, Lake Erie, the Welland Canal, Lake Ontario and the St. Lawrence Seaway.

Back in 2005 there was an environmental assessment of the rebuilding of the plant closed since the mid-90s. At that time, Bruce Power said the 100 tonne steam generators would be stored at a radioactive material waste storage facility onsite. Now they are to be moved to Sweden. This is a major deviation from the original plan and we have asked the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) not to allow the change without redoing the environmental assessment.

In its response to Sierra Club, Bruce Power says they told the CNSC that "non-radioactive wastes would be reused or recycled." Therefore there is no need to revisit the environmental assessment. Now it isn't clear just how radioactive the steam generators are (one justifiable reason for an environmental assessment before moving them), but the inside of the of the generators where contaminated heavy water was circulating for 20 years is definitely radioactive. The outside of the generators has been vigorously cleaned to remove radioactive contamination. So I guess the question I have is, How do you move the outside of the generators to Sweden while keeping the inside on the Bruce site? I think working that out would require an environmental assessment.

My favourite part of the Bruce response is this:

"The Canadian Environmental Assessment Act allows provisions to improve a project so long as the improvements themselves do not require an environmental assessment. The shipment of the steam generators to Sweden is not an activity that requires an EA to be conducted."

This quote actually implies the Sierra Club is against recycling and improving the project, while Bruce Power -- being environmentally aware -- is doing all it can to reuse and recycle. Wow, what a thought. So transporting 1600 tonnes of radioactive waste from Canada to Sweden is an improvement on the original plan? How big a blue box would you need for a recycling project like that?

Bruce Power is repeating the mantra of reuse and recycle, but they're forgetting the most important "R" - reject.

We don't need a rebuilt nuclear reactor on Lake Huron and the government should have rejected the plan in the first place. When the plan was approved in 2005, Bruce Power said the radioactive waste in general and the steam generators in particular would not be transported offsite. It is the policy of the Nuclear Waste Management Organazition (NWMO) that nuclear waste be stored in existing waste management facilities until a permanent storage facility is built. Changing the plan to do something contrary to the spirit (if not the letter) of NWMO policy, and the complete opposite of what was submitted to an environmental assessment, warrants revisiting that environmental assessment before it is allowed.

I have always been of the opinion the name of the Atomic Energy Control Board was changed to the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission to better reflect its real purpose: protecting the nuclear industry and not controlling it. I hope I'm wrong. I won't be if this is allowed with another rubber stamp.