Make Your Voice Heard for Proper Decommissioning of the Gentilly-1 Nuclear Power Plant
Did you know that American-owned companies—operating under the misleading name of Canadian Nuclear Laboratory Partners— were given a $24 billion, 20-year contract to manage nuclear facilities in Canada? We are participating in the assessment of the Decommissioning of the Gentilly-1 Nuclear Reactor, located in Bécancour, Quebec. It is good news that this reactor has been shut down – but how this decommissioning is proceeding is raising a lot of concerns. If you’ve been following us for a while, there are big picture problems with how the nuclear industry has been given control over regulating itself in Canada and this decommissioning is starting to feel like an insider game.
So far, we have been told that the environmental report on effects of the decommissioning will not be released until after the regulator has made a decision regarding the level of assessment that should occur for taking the plant apart. Second, taking apart the nuclear station will involve finding a “forever home” for waste and parts of the plant that are still radioactive and toxic – presumably the Chalk River nuclear waste depository – over 500 km away in Ontario. The public, experts, and Indigenous rights holders along the route need to be aware of what waste might be travelling through their communities.
As the first ever full decommissioning of a nuclear power plant in Canada, this project deserves the highest level of scrutiny possible. Please write in before February 5th to the Impact Assessment Agency, the Canada Nuclear Safety Commission, and Minister of Environment and Climate Change Julie Dabrusin to ask for:
- A review panel for the “Decommissioning of the Gentilly-1 Waste Facility project,” be sure to include “Reference Number 90092”;
- The immediate release of the environmental effects report (“Environmental Effects Review for Gentilly-1 Waste Facility – Phase 3 Decommissioning”); and
- Impacts of transport and disposal of the waste to be included in the assessment, including by consulting communities along the route of radioactive waste from the plant, and by consulting First Nations on whose traditional territory this hazardous waste would be stored.
Send your letter to:
Minister of Environment and Climate Change, Julie Dabrusin: ministre-minister@ec.gc.ca
Impact Assessment Agency Registry: registry-registre@iaac-aeic.gc.ca
Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, Environmental Assessment Division: er-ee@cnsc-ccsn.gc.ca
Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd: communications@aecl.ca
Canadian Nuclear Laboratories: communications@cnl.ca
Please note, messages sent to the IAAC and Canadian Nuclear Safety will be posted publicly. You should get a follow-up email regarding your submission.
See the Globe and Mail article to find out more: New leaders take charge of cleaning up Canada’s most contaminated nuclear sites. Can they reduce federal liabilities?
What do we do with the shut-down reactors?
For forty-seven years, the Gentilly-1 (G-1) reactor, owned by Atomic Energy of Canada Limited (AECL), has been sitting idle alongside the St. Lawrence River in Becancour, QC. It is a prototype boiling water CANDU design that never worked well.
Last December, AECL gave American-owned companies—operating under the misleading name of Canadian Nuclear Laboratory Partners—a $24 billion, 20-year contract to manage its facilities. These include five other shut-down reactors: one on the Winnipeg River, one on Lake Huron, and three on the Ottawa River.
The House of Commons Natural Resources committee is studying “Management of Canadian Nuclear Laboratories by U.S. Companies,” including their performance in reducing AECL’s decommissioning and radioactive waste liability.
In 2016, a previous U.S.-led consortium, also contracted by AECL, proposed to fill two reactors with concrete and grout and abandon them next to the Winnipeg and Ottawa Rivers. International safety standards only allow “entombments” after emergencies such as Chernobyl. The projects are stalled.
The new U.S. consortium now wants to dismantle and demolish the G-1 reactor–the first-ever full decommissioning of a CANDU power reactor. Demolition would expose radioactive concrete and steel reactor components and contaminated soil, with potential environmental impacts on the St. Lawrence.
“Decommissioning of the Gentilly-1 Waste Facility” was posted on the federal Impact Assessment Registry just before Christmas. The public comment period ends February 5th. If no comments are received, AECL can issue an Impact Assessment Act section 82 “no effects” determination and allow demolition by the U.S. consortium.
The G-1 reactor is on provincial land, next to Hydro Quebec’s shut-down Gentilly-2 reactor. A coordinated assessment of remediation of the entire Gentilly site, by both federal and Quebec governments, would bring jobs and environmental benefits for Canadians, instead of profits for Americans
Related from CRED-NB:
As the Coalition for Responsible Energy Development in New Brunswick (CRED-NB) pointed out recently (PDF):
“The unpredictable behaviour of the U.S. administration – threatening a NATO member and announcing a new policy that skirts a long-standing and vital international nuclear weapons control agreement – raises alarm bells when considering that several of the [U.S.] companies now running [Canadian Nuclear Laboratories] have connections to the weapons industry…. How will we know if these CNL companies are conducting research at Chalk River that they could use or transfer later for U.S. military purposes? We won’t know.”
That sort of data flow is not without precedent, as Paris Marx pointed out on our podcast recently: U.S. companies in the tech sector are legally obligated to hand over data to the U.S. Government even if that data is stored in Canada.
