Concerned Citizens appear before Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission

Pembroke, Ontario, October 5, 2000. The Concerned Citizens of Renfrew County and Area (CCRC), an environmental group from the upper Ottawa Valley, will appear before the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) in Ottawa today to plead for pollution control at SRB Technologies (Canada) Inc., a tritium light factory located at 320 Boundary Road in Pembroke, Ontario. The Commission is considering a recommendation from its staff to give SRB a 5-year, Class 1 Nuclear Facilities license.

Through Access to Information Program requests, CCRC has learned that SRB emits large quantities of tritium, a radioactive form of hydrogen, into the surrounding environment. Residential areas, an indoor ice arena, factories, restaurants, and a mini-mall are located in the neighborhood of the facility.

"SRB's tritium emissions are of great concern to us," says CCRC President Lynn Jones, "because there is no buffer zone around the facility. Tritium is carcinogenic, teratogenic amd mutagenic. It is targeted for zero emission by the International Joint Commission."

CCRC has concluded that SRB is the largest point source of tritium pollution in the world, releasing over one thousand trillion Becquerels of tritium in 1998.

Through a program of environmental sampling and urine testing undertaken and paid for by its own volunteers, CCRC determined over a year ago that plants and humans were contaminated by tritium at levels hundreds of times natural background. The Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission has done its own tests, confirming the environmental group's findings. One sample of potatoes tested by the CNSC contained more than 3000 times the normal background tritium level.

The Commission has assured the Concerned Citizens group and the Pembroke City Council that radiation doses from SRB's tritium emissions pose a negligible risk to the public. But independent experts disagree. Experts such as Dr. Rosalie Bertell, Dr. David Hoel, and Dr. Mark Goldberg have told the group that tritium levels are of concern and should be reduced. Dr. Hoel notes that exposures are at a level that would trigger regulatory action in the U.S.

CCRC will be asking the Commission to require installation of a pollution control device to remove tritium from SRB's stacks. "We know such a device exists because we have a copy of an Atomic Energy Control Board memo that discussed it prior to the company's start-up in 1991," said Ms. Jones. "The Commission should make the installation of this device a condition of the company's license. The device would probably pay for itself over time, since the tritium it captures is highly valuable and could be recovered."

"It is astounding, in this day and age, to see such a backward and unenlightened approach to protecting the public from toxic substances," added Ms. Jones. "At this point I guess we're hoping for a miracle. The Commission staff have already responded to our request by saying that emissions are as low as reasonably achievable, and the company should be given a 5-year license with no requirement for pollution control."

CCRCA.