By IPS Correspondents
OTTAWA, Feb 28 1998 (IPS)

Canada’s nuclear power stations, operated by provincial authorities, are plagued with environmental and safety problems despite pledges to clean them up, according to a damning new federal report.

The report, released during an Atomic Energy Control Board (AECB) hearing into the licensing of the nuclear plants, paints a picture of old power stations that are barely able to stay ahead of leaks and decay, despite billions of dollars that have been spent on upgrades. The AECB is an autonomous federal agency with its own staff of nuclear engineers who inspect and license nuclear reactors in Canada.

Canada’s oldest atomic generating station,he 27-year-old Pickering A power plant jut east of Toronto, Ontario, is shut own for a refit to its reactors that will cst morethan one billion dollars. The Pickering B plant, which tands nearby, is currently dogged by safety and morale problems, the study by a team of engineers showed.

Elsewhere, one-half of the Bruce Nuclear Power Station on Lake Huron, has been shut down while its reactors are rebuilt – after “heavy water” leaked into the Great Lakes. Hydro officials said the shut-down reactors might be too damaged to be repaired.

Last July, the AECB showed its concern with Ontario Hydro, the public utility that operates all but one of Canada’s power reactors, by renewing the Pickering station’s license for only nine months. Ontario Hydro wanted the station’s license renewed for two years.

Now, with its license running ou at the end of March, the AECB study by federal engineers stationed at Pickering, documents sloppy management, poor employee skills, and numerous safety problems. These include:

– radioactive tritium, an element used to make nuclear weapons, leaking into the groundwater;

– flammable liquid industrial waste stored near reactors and steam turbines;

– alarms that don’t work. Some are “nuisance alarms” that have been disabled by staff. Spare parts aren’t available for other alarms;

– leaking roofs, with radioactive waste-contaminated tarpaulins covering some equipment;

– a backlog of maintenance jobs, a shortage of tools and spare parts, and poor training and qualification for maintenance workers;

– reactor operators who, after completng Hydro safety courses, fail AECB exams; “We observed, discouragingly, that the number of drums of downgraded deuterium dioxide and contaminated liquids stored in reactor auxiliary bay areas has significantly increased at Pickering, ” says the engineers report. “Also, we noted that field area gamma monitors in the Pickering Nuclear Generating Station buildings continue to be inoperable.

“Timely removal, control, containmen nd minimization of potential fire hazards (such as used oil, volatile substances, and other combustibles) need further improvement in the turbine buildings and reactor buildings… Finally, a large number of chronic alarms in the main control room need to be fixed.”

The report adds that while “the risk to workers and the public is low, we believe that improvens to operational safety and reactor maintenance continue to be required. Progress is being made by Ontario Hydro but, as stated previously, progress is slow and much still remains to be done.”

Anti-nuclear activists have opposed Ontario’s nuclear power program since it began in the 1970s. Eight reactors operating in Ontario, along with two more in the Atlantic province of New Brunswick, have suffered heavy water leaks, failures to cooling systems, and other equipment faults.

“Surely Ontario Hydro should get the message that these reactors are too old and to accident prone, and they should shut down for good,’ says Dave Martin of Durham Nuclear Awareness, a citizen’s group that has made frequent requests to the federal government to cancel Ontario Hydro’s license to run the reactors.

Some equipment is held together with “electrical tape and velcro,” the report says. Also, reactors are still using plastic pipe that has been taken out of all U.S. reactors because it breaks up if it is exposed to radiation. The polyvinyl chloride pipe also has been labeled a fire and poison gas hazard.

Ontario Hydro chairman William Farlinger agreed that Pickering and Hydro’s two other nuclear power plants are in trouble.

“When I became chairman of the board of Ontario Hydro in 1995, there were alarming signs of decline in our nuclear power system,” he says. But he maintans that new management is starting to turn around the company’s nuclear division.

Allan Kupcis, Ontario Hydro’s former president, admits that Canadian nuclear workers have become complacent. “This situation has been building for 15 years and the only way we could get at it was to bring in outsiders to look at our nuclear division,” he said in an interview.

Kupcis resigned from his 350,000 dolls-a-year job last August after a team of American experts hired by the federal government found Ontario’s nuclear plants to be safe, but operating at “a minimally acceptable level.”

Kupcis says Ontario Hydro workers believed they were the best in the world, and that its “CANDU” reactors were safe. “They had been allowed to grow complacent in just normal work procedures, and management did not take these issues in hand,” he said.

“In Canada, we did not have any nuclear disasters such as Three Mile Island to shake our managers and warn them to be extra careful with things nuclear.”

Morale at Pickering, however, has since improved after working conditions were improved and Ombudsman appointed to handle safety complaints by employees, insist Hydro officials.

“I had hundreds of (nuclear power plant workers) writing directly to me, saying they couldn’t go through management with their concerns,” Farlinger said. Other Hydro officials say the Pickering generating station has improved substantially during the winter, and workers finally were getting ahead of the problems. Some of the toxic waste stored at Pickering has finally been shipped out for disposal, they said.

The AECB will make a decision on a new license for Pickering after a meeting in Oshawa, the closest city to Pickering, on March 23. Meanwhile, the Ontario provincial government is still considering whether to order an environmental review of the Pickering power plant, and public hearings into the environmental problems caused by the power plant.

Late last year, a referendum on the power plant resulted in 87 per cent of Pickering area residents voting in favor of asking the province to re-evaluate the environmental impact of the nuclear power plant, which began operating in 1971.

Now, provincial government officials have finished a report on the need for an assessment and have given it to Ontario environment minister Norman Sterling. Still to come is the AECB’s report on Ontario’s two other power plants, the Bruce Nuclear Power Station on Lake Huron and the Darlington Nuclear Power Staion near Pickering on Lake Ontario.

Excerpt:

By IPS Correspondents
OTTAWA, Feb 26 1998 (IPS)

Canada’s nuclear power stations, operated by provincial authorities, are plagued with environmental and safety problems despite pledges to clean them up, according to a damning new federal report.

The report, released during an Atomic Energy Control Board (AECB) hearing into the licensing of the nuclear plants, paints a picture of old power stations that are barely able to stay ahead of leaks and decay, despite billions of dollars that have been spent on upgrades. The AECB is an autonomous federal agency with its own staff of nuclear engineers who inspect and license nuclear reactors in Canada.

Canada’s oldest atomic generating station, the 27-year-old Pickering A power plant just east of Toronto, Ontario, is shut down for a refit to its reactors that will cost more than one billion dollars. The Pickering B plant, which stands nearby, is currently dogged by safety and morale problems, the study by a team of engineers showed.

Elsewhere, one-half of the Bruce Nuclear Power Station on Lake Huron, has been shut down while its reactors are rebuilt – after “heavy water” leaked into the Great Lakes. Hydro officials said the shut-down reactors might be too damaged to be repaired.

Last July, the AECB showed its concern with Ontario Hydro, the public utility that operates all but one of Canada’s power reactors, by renewing the Pickering station’s license for only nine months. Ontario Hydro wanted the station’s license renewed for two years.

Now, with its license running ou at the end of March, the AECB study by federal engineers stationed at Pickering, documents sloppy management, poor employee skills, and numerous safety problems. These include:

– radioactive tritium, an element used to make nuclear weapons, leaking into the groundwater;

– flammable liquid industrial waste stored near reactors and steam turbines;

– alarms that don’t work. Some are “nuisance alarms” that have been disabled by staff. Spare parts aren’t available for other alarms;

– leaking roofs, with radioactive waste-contaminated tarpaulins covering some equipment;

– a backlog of maintenance jobs, a shortage of tools and spare parts, and poor training and qualification for maintenance workers;

– reactor operators who, after completing Hydro safety courses, fail AECB exams;

“We observed, discouragingly, that the number of drums of downgraded deuterium dioxide and contaminated liquids stored in reactor auxiliary bay areas has significantly increased at Pickering, ” says the engineers report. “Also, we noted that field area gamma monitors in the Pickering Nuclear Generating Station buildings continue to be inoperable.

“Timely removal, control, containment and minimization of potential fire hazards (such as used oil, volatile substances, and other combustibles) need further improvement in the turbine buildings and reactor buildings… Finally, a large number of chronic alarms in the main control room need to be fixed.”

The report adds that while “the risk to workers and the public is low, we believe that improvements to operational safety and reactor maintenance continue to be required. Progress is being made by Ontario Hydro but, as stated previously, progress is slow and much still remains to be done.”

Anti-nuclear activists have opposed Ontario’s nuclear power program since it began in the 1970s. Eight reactors operating in Ontario, along with two more in the Atlantic province of New Brunswick, have suffered heavy water leaks, failures to cooling systems, and other equipment faults.

“Surely Ontario Hydro should get the message that these reactors are too old and to accident prone, and they should shut down for good,’ says Dave Martin of Durham Nuclear Awareness, a citizen’s group that has made frequent requests to the federal government to cancel Ontario Hydro’s license to run the reactors.

Some equipment is held together with “electrical tape and velcro,” the report says. Also, reactors are still using plastic pipe that has been taken out of all U.S. reactors because it breaks up if it is exposed to radiation. The polyvinyl chloride pipe also has been labelled a fire and poison gas hazard.

Ontario Hydro chairman William Farlinger agreed that Pickering and Hydro’s two other nuclear power plants are in trouble.

“When I became chairman of the board of Ontario Hydro in 1995, there were alarming signs of decline in our nuclear power system,” he says. But he maintains that new management is starting to turn around the company’s nuclear division.

Allan Kupcis, Ontario Hydro’s former president, admits that Canadian nuclear workers have become complacent. “This situation has been building for 15 years and the only way we could get at it was to bring in outsiders to look at our nuclear division,” he said in an interview.

Kupcis resigned from his 350,000 dolls-a-year job last August after a team of American experts hired by the federal government found Ontario’s nuclear plants to be safe, but operating at “a minimally acceptable level.”

Kupcis says Ontario Hydro workers believed they were the best in the world, and that its “CANDU” reactors were safe. “They had been allowed to grow complacent in just normal work procedures, and management did not take these issues in hand,” he said.

“In Canada, we did not have any nuclear disasters such as Three Mile Island to shake our managers and warn them to be extra careful with things nuclear.”

Morale at Pickering, however, has since improved after working conditions were improved and Ombudsman appointed to handle safety complaints by employees, insist Hydro officials.

“I had hundreds of (nuclear power plant workers) writing directly to me, saying they couldn’t go through management with their concerns,” Farlinger said. Other Hydro officials say the Pickering generating station has improved substantially during the winter, and workers finally were getting ahead of the problems. Some of the toxic waste stored at Pickering has finally been shipped out for disposal, they said.

The AECB will make a decision on a new license for Pickering after a meeting in Oshawa, the closest city to Pickering, on March 23. Meanwhile, the Ontario provincial government is still considering whether to order an environmental review of the Pickering power plant, and public hearings into the environmental problems caused by the power plant.

Late last year, a referendum on the power plant resulted in 87 per cent of Pickering area residents voting in favor of asking the province to re-evaluate the environmental impact of the nuclear power plant, which began operating in 1971.

Now, provincial government officials have finished a report on the need for an assessment and have given it to Ontario environment minister Norman Sterling. Still to come is the AECB’s report on Ontario’s two other power plants, the Bruce Nuclear Power Station on Lake Huron and the Darlington Nuclear Power Station near Pickering on Lake Ontario.

Excerpt: