Concerned Citizens of Renfrew County & Area (CCRC) or (CCRCA)

An environmental group of Renfrew and Pontiac Counties. Our focus as a watchdog of the nuclear industry in Renfrew County continues.

Focus

1) Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. has a research facility in Renfrew County, Chalk River Laboritories. It is the major employer in Renfrew County with about 2500 people employed, not including the spin off jobs in services and supplies. Radioactive wastes have been generated for 5 decades at this site and for most of that time were improperly treated or stored and have led to toxic ground and water conditons on site. These are a lasting legacy for generations to come, long after the site will operate as a research facility. CCRC is aware that radioactive waste, spills and emissions are entering the Ottawa River, the air, soil and groundwater and is following the proceedings concerning remediation and decommissioning plans for the site.
 
2) We are also concerned with tritium emissions in the area of SRB Technologies, situated in Pembroke in an industrial mall on Boundary Road. As a tritium light manufacturer and in their process of tritium reclamation from old tritium tubes, the company vents waste tritium from its stacks into the Pembroke environment. A radioactive form of hydrogen, tritium has a half-life of twelve years. Because it gives off low energy beta (electron) radiation, some experts consider it less dangerous than many other isotopes. However, tritium behaves chemically and biochemically like ordinary hydrogen. When ingested, it can incorporate itself into all forms of body cells, including those of the reproductive system. Researchers theorize that because of its ability to act like regular water, tritium can incorporate with the DNA in living cells, multiplying the prospects for damage leading to genetic mutations and cancer [6 ]

Details

Chalk River Laboratories Nuclear Research and Test Establishment.

Chalk River Laboratories (CRL) is located on a 3,700 hectare site on the Ottawa River, 30 km northwest of Pembroke. It is owned and operated by Atomic Energy of Canada Limited (AECL), the federal crown corporation that designs and markets CANDU reactors. Fifty years of nuclear activities at CRL have left a heavily contaminated site. Radioactive wastes are leaking into the Ottawa River, used as both a source of recreation and drinking water by communities downriver in Ontario and Quebec.
 
CRL was created in 1944 as part of the allied war effort to develop the atomic bomb. There are seven reactors at Chalk River at various stages of construction, operation or decommissioning. Other equipment and facilities such as accelerators, and shielded hot cells are used for research and commercial applications. Nuclear fuel production and reprocessing facilities are also housed at Chalk River. A variety of work is conducted, including research and development on nuclear reactors and nuclear waste management. The site also includes several radioactive waste storage areas occupying about 20 hectares. Wastes were handled carelessly in the first several decades of operation at Chalk River, and as a result there is widespread radioactive contamination of the site.

AECL continues to accept new radioactive wastes from the nuclear power industry, radioisotope manufacturers and other industrial sources, universities, hospitals and government agencies. Wastes from outside of Canada are not accepted directly, but may be accepted through Canadian companies that deal in radioisotopes. The federal nuclear regulatory agency, the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission regularly reviews the operating licence of the facility.
 
For more background on the situation at the Chalk River Laboratories, please consult our latest submission to the Safety Commission of May 20, 2005.
 
Coming up: June 30 hearing on extending the operation of the NRU reactor until 2012. The NRU was first put into commission in 1957. It is a major source of medical radioisotopes, which are sold by MDS/Nordion. Problems with the new MAPLE reactors, which were intended to replace the NRU reactor for medical isotope production, will force AECL to continue operating the NRU for this purpose, as well as for various research activities.

SRB, Canada's Largest Tritium Emitter

SRB Technologies Canada Inc. is a Tritium light manufacturer operating in a mini-mall on Boundary Rd., Pembroke. The company is a source of Tritium environmental contamination in the Pembroke area. Because of our concerns for public health, we started sending environmental samples to laboritories for tritium analysis. We have accumulated 5 years of data, starting in 1999, that show that tritium in the environment around SRB may be increasing rather than decreasing. The company is still releasing unwanted tritium into the Pembroke air, soil and water.
 
While the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission listens to our concerns, they do little to regulate this facility other than issue operating licences. In a letter dated March 9, 2005, to Ms. Linda Keen, President and CEO, Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, we request her personal involvement in a review of the way the CNSC is carrying out its legal mandate.

The Tucson Tritium Tragedy

This is a story of a company in Tucson, AZ that was shut down by the regulators. American Atomics was a tritium light factory in Tucson in the 1970's. The story of the demise of American Atomics in Tucson is told in a book which has been published on the internet by permission of the authors, Harvey Wasserman and Norman Solomon, who own the rights to this book. Chapter 10 of the bookIt is reprinted here, in part. It is a story of what can go wrong when communities are affected by irresponsible companies.
On a related topic, we look at Tritium sampling done in 1998 at the Pickering, Darlington and Bruce nuclear power stations, operated by Ontario Hydro. Also, we report on a paper concerning Tritium sampling at AECL Chalk River. The results of Tritium in the environment at these sites will put the amount of Tritium being released into the environment in Pembroke by SRB Technologies into some perspective. Also, please see Tritium-in-vegetation trends in graphic format, which illustrates how the tritium emissions have dropped at these power plants since the early 1990's. This is due to improved tritium removal technology. We present these here as a further call for SRB Technologies to reduce their very high emissions of tritium and for the regulator, the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC), to fulfill its responsibility to protect the environment from human-produced radioactive pollution in Pembroke.
 
 
Also, please see our press releases, press reports and letters and as they relate to:
 

Our Mission: CCRC is dedicated to the pursuit of a clean environment in Renfrew County that is free of radioactive contaminants from the nuclear industry.

The goals of our group are straightforward:

# 1. Existing leaking nuclear waste (28K) sites at AECL/Chalk River will be cleaned up.

# 2. Imports of radioactive wastes into Renfrew County will be eliminated.

# 3. Routine emissions of radioactive substances (20K) by the nuclear industry in Renfrew County will be reduced to be compatible with the latest information about health risks of radiation.

# 4. There will be new employment and community development opportunities in Renfrew County based on renewable, non-polluting energy technologies.

Other informative links:


Contact email for CCRC ole at nrtco.net
last updated May 29, 2005
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"No degree of prosperity could justify the accumulation of large amounts of highly toxic substances which nobody knows how to make "safe" and which remain an incalculable danger to the whole of creation for historical or even geological ages. To do such a thing is a transgression against life itself, a transgression infinitely more serious than any crime ever perpetrated by man. The idea that a civilisation could sustain itself on the basis of such a transgression is an ethical, spiritual, and metaphysical monstrosity. It means conducting the economic affairs of man as if people really did not matter at all."
--E.F. Schumacher