A hearing this Wednesday November 12 in the Federal Court of Appeal, before a panel of three judges, will be a test of Canada’s commitment to protect threatened and endangered species and may determine whether the giant Ottawa River nuclear waste dump can be built or not.You can watch the hearing on Zoom by registering at this link, and you are also invited to a rally, “Stand up for Wildlife,” from noon to 2 pm outside the courtroom on Sparks St. in Ottawa.
Background:
Earlier this year we celebrated the successful legal challenge to the granting of a Species-at-Risk permit to Canadian Nuclear Laboratories (CNL) for the construction of the nuclear waste dump known as the “NSDF.” The legal challenge was brought by Kebaowek First Nation, Concerned Citizens of Renfrew County and Area, the Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility, and Sierra Club Canada Foundation.
You may recall that CNL is owned by a multinational private-sector consortium that operates Canada’s federal nuclear labs under a $1.6 billion per year contract with the Government of Canada. CNL needed a Species-at-risk permit in order to construct its controversial, giant, above-ground nuclear waste dump beside the Ottawa River because the site they chose for the dump is on federal land smack dab in the middle of irreplaceable wildlife habitat that is home to many species at risk. A permit would allow CNL to destroy habitat and residences for threatened and endangered species in order to construct its giant dump.
In order to get a permit, a proponent must prove that it carefully considered all possible alternatives and chose the one with the least impact on endangered species. CNL did not do this. In fact, it is on record as saying it chose the location because it would reduce transportation costs. In his ruling issued on March 14, 2025, Justice Russel Zinn said the environment minister’s issuing of the species-at-risk permit was “unreasonable due to fatal flaws” in interpreting and applying the federal Species at Risk Act, adding that the issuing of the permit must be reconsidered.
Unfortunately for threatened wildlife and for Canadian taxpayers, who foot the bill for everything the multinational consortium does under its contract with the government, the case was appealed by CNL. Hence, the evidence will be reviewed again on November 12, this time in the federal court of appeal, by a panel of three judges.
The legal case here is fairly cut and dried; it will be interesting to see how it plays out. But behind the straightforward legal arguments lies a shocking story of disregard for wildlife that we discovered when we applied for the initial judicial review and received 4,000 pages of material connected with the permit application. Among other things, we learned that CNL knew that the site was very rich in biodiversity, but chose it anyway. The site is located on a south facing densely forested hillside that rises 140 feet above five named wetlands at its base, critical habitat for endangered Blanding’s turtles. The forest stands have old growth characteristics and provide prime habitat for endangered bats and songbirds such as the Canada Warbler, Golden-winged Warbler and Eastern Whip-poor-will. To create a flat surface for the NSDF, clear cutting and extensive blasting would convert 28 hectares of forested hillside into 170,000 cubic metres of rock, with unknown but likely adverse effects on the surrounding wetlands. More than 10,000 mature trees would be cut down, including provincially-endangered Black Ash trees. Kebaowek First Nation found three active bear dens on the site, and evidence of extensive use of the site by threatened Eastern Wolves. Both bears and wolves are species of great cultural importance to Algonquin peoples.
Seethis post on the Concerned Citizens website, for more detail on CNL’s disregard for wildlife in its choice of a site for the NSDF.
The beautiful artwork below is by Destiny Cote of Kitigan Zibi Anishinabeg. Eastern Wolves are one of the threatened species that would be adversely affected by the NSDF.
This letter appeared in the July 7 edition of the Hill Times. (subscribe here)
It was in response to a letter by Jeremy Whitlock, indefatigable cheerleader for all things nuclear. His letter, published on June 23, 2025 is here.
Jeremy Whitlock was responding to this letter, published in the Hill Times on June 16, 2025:
Canada is failing to meet a fundamental principle of nuclear safety according to international experts
A March 2025 report by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) flagged a serious problem in Canada’s nuclear governance regime. Canada has not incorporated the fundamental safety principle of justification into its legal framework, despite being urged to do so by an international peer review team in 2019.
The IAEA principle of justification in nuclear safety requires that any practice involving human exposures to ionizing radiation be justified during the licensing process for a facility. It must be demonstrated that the overall benefits of the project to individuals and society, outweigh the potential health detriments of the radiation exposures it will cause.
Justification is necessary because there is no safe level of exposure to ionizing radiation from nuclear reactors and radioactive waste. Ionizing radiation causes cancers of all kinds, many other chronic diseases and damage to the human gene pool. Human-made nuclear waste will remain hazardous and radioactive for millions of years.
Canada’s failure to justify nuclear projects is a serious deficiency that urgently needs to be addressed given the Government of Canada’s professed interest in funding and expanding nuclear electricity generation in Canada. We need to ask: can we justify creating more and more radioactive waste that future generations will have to deal with even though they will receive zero benefit from the activities that created it.
Other serious deficiencies were flagged by the IAEA experts in 2019. For example, Canada allows pregnant nuclear workers to be exposed to a radiation dose four times larger than is tolerated by IAEA standards. This issue remains unaddressed five years later.
Why is so little Chalk River waste suitable for near surface disposal?
Extensive research work at the Chalk River Laboratories on nuclear reactor fuels, and in the early days, on materials for nuclear weapons, produced waste with large quantities of long-lived alpha emitters. This waste is difficult to manage and can even become increasingly radioactive over time.
According to the International Atomic Energy Agency, because of the presence of long-lived alpha emitters, waste from nuclear research facilities is generally classified as intermediate level, and even in some cases, as high level. This waste cannot be put in a near surface disposal facility because its radioactivity will not decay to harmless levels during the period that the facility remains under institutional control.
Alpha emitters decay by throwing off an alpha particle, the equivalent of a helium nucleus, with two protons and two neutrons. The external penetrating power of an alpha particle is low, but alpha emitters have extremely serious health effects if ingested or inhaled. They can lodge in your lungs and cause cancer.
Research at Chalk River and all other nuclear laboratories is ultimately based on three long-lived alpha emitters — thorium-232, uranium-235, and uranium-238. These are the “naturally occurring” or “primordial” radionuclides. They were created by large stars and then incorporated into the Earth and the solar system when they formed some 4.5 billion years ago. The waste inventory proposed by Canadian Nuclear Laboratories for the Near Surface Disposal Facility (NSDF) includes over six tons each of thorium-232 and uranium-238.
Each “natural” alpha emitter initiates a decay chain with roughly a dozen radioactive isotopes of other elements such as radium, radon, and polonium. These elements also occur naturally, but in much smaller amounts because of their more rapid decay.
When a radioactive element releases an alpha particle, the atomic weight of the product goes down by four. Uranium-238 decays to uranium-234, with a 245,000-year half-life. Uranium-234 decays to thorium-230, with a 75,000-year half-life. Thorium-230 decays to radium-226, with a 1,600-year half-life. Shorter half-lives mean greater initial radioactivity. Radium-226 decays to radon-222, with a 4-day half-life. Radon-222, a gas, builds up in the basements of houses built over uranium-rich rocks. When it is inhaled it decays into polonium-218, a highly toxic, cancer-causing substance with a 3-day half-life. “Naturally occurring” alpha emitters are clearly harmful.
Hazards increase when uranium and thorium are mined and concentrated from ores and used in their pure form. Marie Curie, who spent much of her career isolating radium and polonium from uranium, died of radiation-induced leukemia at age 66. She was buried in a lead-lined tomb because her corpse emitted so much radiation.
When thorium-232, uranium-235, and uranium-238 are irradiated in a reactor, as at Chalk River, they absorb neutrons and produce significant quantities of new, man-made, long-lived alpha-emitters. Irradiated uranium-238 absorbs a neutron and temporarily forms uranium-239. Uranium-239 transmutes to neptunium-239, which quickly transmutes to long-lived plutonium-239, with a half-life of 24,000 years.
Plutonium-239 is “fissile” – it can readily support a chain reaction. It is what the early Chalk River researchers produced for the manufacture of U.S. nuclear weapons, by separating the plutonium from irradiated reactor fuel. They also used the separated plutonium to make “mixed oxide” (MOX) reactor fuel, mixing it with fresh uranium.
Thorium-232, when put in a nuclear reactor, will absorb a neutron and transmute to uranium-233, with a half-life of 160,000 years. Uranium-233 also can support a chain reaction, so it can be used in atomic bombs and reactor fuels as well. Chalk River researchers did a lot of work to separate uranium-233 from irradiated thorium-232.
All reactor fuel contains uranium-235. It is the only naturally occurring isotope that readily undergoes fission and can sustain a chain reaction. But not all uranium-235 atoms undergo fission in a nuclear reactor. Instead they can absorb either one or two neutrons and form yet two more very long-lived, man-made alpha-emitters, uranium-236 (half-life of 23.4 million years) and neptunium-237 (half-life of 2.14 million years).
Nuclear engineers don’t like uranium-236 because it acts as a “neutron poison”, absorbing neutrons instead of undergoing fission. The longer that uranium-235 fuel remains in a reactor, the more uranium-236 and neptunium-237 are produced.
Uranium-236 is certainly a part of the Chalk River waste. It is the longest-lived of all the man-made alpha emitters, but for some reason it was omitted from the NSDF inventory.
As noted above, thorium-232, uranium-235, and uranium-238 are the start of three naturally occurring decay chains. A fourth decay chain starts with man-made neptunium-237 and ends with thallium-205 (the element before lead in the periodic table). Neptunium and its “progeny” have all decayed away during Earth’s 4.5-billion-year history, but production of neptunium-237 in nuclear reactors (and uranium-233 by thorium-232 irradiation) has “resurrected” this hitherto extinct fourth decay chain.
Americium-241, found in significant quantities in Chalk River waste, is another starting point for the man-made nepturium-237 decay chain. Nuclear reactors have also greatly augmented the amounts of radionuclides in the uranium-235 decay chain by producing plutonium-239, and in the thorium-232 decay chain by producing uranium-236.
Early research done at Chalk River to extract (or “reprocess”) plutonium-239 and uranium-233 from irradiated fuel and irradiated thorium targets has created a legacy of buildings (e.g., the Plutonium Recovery Laboratory) and soils (e.g., the Thorium Pit) that are contaminated with long-lived alpha emitters. Reprocessing was dangerous and caused several accidents. The resulting contamination has never been cleaned up.
Until 2018, highly enriched uranium-235 targets were irradiated in the NRU reactor at Chalk River, followed by dissolving the targets in nitric acid and extracting the fission product molybdenum-99, a “medical isotope”. After extraction of “moly-99”, the other fission products, and the long-lived alpha emitters uranium-236 and neptunium-237 (produced when uranium-235 atoms absorb neutrons instead of undergoing fission), remain in the medical isotope waste. This waste resembles high-level spent fuel waste and represents one of Chalk River’s most dangerous legacies.
Fuel reprocessing, medical isotope production, and other research activities at Chalk River have produced very significant amounts of waste containing long-lived alpha emitters. This waste is unsuitable for near-surface disposal. Much of it is mixed with shorter-lived fission products and cannot be separated from them. This mixed waste should not be put in the NSDF.
Detecting alpha emitters in mixed waste is expensive and challenging. Putting inadequately characterized waste in the NSDF would invalidate its safety case.
Unfortunately, the NSDF Project lacks adequate waste characterization procedures. If the project is allowed to proceed, workers and future Ottawa valley residents could be exposed to unknown quantities of long-lived alpha emitters and suffer the serious health effects associated with them.
Will CNL put nuclear reactor components in the NSDF?
The lack of clarity about the nature of the waste intended for disposal in the NSDF has been a concern since the NSDF project description was published in March 2016. In our group’s comments on the project description, submitted in June 2016, we stated
For the public to have adequate information about the nature of the radioactive waste proposed for inclusion in the NSDF, the environmental assessment must provide much more detail than simply stating that the waste “will be required to meet waste acceptance criteria.”
CNL has prepared a document, NSDF Waste Acceptance Criteria (WAC) that CNL says “will ensure the short- and long-term protection of the public, the environment and workers.” But is this true? And do the NSDF Waste Acceptance Criteriaallow CNL to place reactor components in the NSDF?
The calandria from the NRX reactor accident in December 1952 and two calandria from the NRU reactor are buried at shallow depths in the waste management areas of Chalk River Laboratories. This is stated in the Overview Decommissioning and Cleanup Plan for Chalk River Laboratories:
“Several special burials (NRU and NRX calandrias) were also made in concrete containers or directly in the trenches.”
“Oversized debris, including waste that does not fall within the definition of waste types 1 to 5, primarily due to its size or shape. The process applicable to infrequently performed activities (section 6.4) is used to approve the placement of type 6 waste.”
The Infrequently Performed Operations override clause in section 6.4 states:
“The eligibility of wastes that do not meet all the requirements set forth in the WAC (including Type 6, Oversized Waste) may be evaluated on a case-by-case basis.”
Reactor calandrias would almost certainly exceed the “Dose Rate Limits and Means of Handling and Transferring ” in Table 7 of the WAC. However, the Waste Acceptance Criteria allow these dose limits to be exceeded if waste packages are shielded:
“Shielded Waste Packages could be used to ensure waste complies with the dose rate limit in Table 7.”
CNL has made a presentation to the Chalk River Laboratories Environmental Stewardship Council about its work to uncover the NRX calandria, currently buried at shallow depth in Waste Management Area A. The notes from Council meeting number 53 on Thursday, March 21, 2024, state that a council member asked for an update on this work:
Has anything else been happening with the NRX Calandra [sic] with the Calandra [sic] in Waste Area A?
The first emplacement of radioactive waste at the CRL site took place in 1946 into what is now referred to as Waste Management Area A. These emplacements took the form of direct disposal of solids and liquids into excavated sand trenches. The scale of operations was modest and unrecorded until 1952, when the cleanup from the NRX accident generated large quantities of radioactive waste (which included the reactor’s calandria) that had to be managed quickly and safely. At that time, approximately 4,500 m3 of aqueous waste, containing 330 TBq (9,000 Ci) of mixed fission products, was poured into excavated trenches. This action was followed by smaller dispersals (6.3 TBq and 34 TBq of mixed fission products) in 1954 and 1955, respectively. Waste is no longer accepted for emplacement in Waste Management Area A.
The 2023 Overview Decommissioning and Cleanup Plan for Chalk River Laboratories indicates CNL’s intention to transfer all the contents of WMA A to the NSDF: “the preliminary scenario presented is the removal of wastes from WMA A and its disposal in the NSDF.”
CNL’s lack of transparency regarding the waste destined for the NSDF, despite the requirements of the General Nuclear Safety and Control Regulations (GNSCR), is one of the main points of one of the legal challenges to the CNSC’s decision to authorize construction of the facility.
The Memorandum of Fact and Law for the federal court case (Court File No. T-226-24) between Concerned Citizens of Renfrew County and Area, the Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility and le Ralliement contre la pollution radioactive (Applicants) and Canadian Nuclear Laboratories (Respondent) says the following:
The Commission’s failure to require the specific and comprehensive information set out in GNSCR s. 3(1)(c) and (j) has an enormous impact on the integrity of the Decision as a whole. This failure undermines the Decision’s main conclusion that the NSDF will not produce significant adverse environmental and health effects. All CNL’s calculations estimating the amount of radioactive material that the NSDF would release into the environment and would expose a member of the public to were based on the Waste Acceptance Criteria being followed. Since materials can be placed in the NSDF even if they do not meet the Waste Acceptance Criteria, all the calculations and estimations are a fiction. There is no guarantee that the amount and type of substances that end up in the NSDF will be the same amount and type as that upon which the calculations for the safety assessments were made.
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Photos from Globe and Mail article (19 March 2023) “Jimmy Carter, Chalk River and the dawn of Canada’s nuclear age”
The NRX calandria is lowered into a protective bag and driven away to a disposal site in May 1953.CANADIAN NUCLEAR LABORATORIES
Now, 70 years after the cleanup, the largest artefact from the accident is about to see the light of day once again.
The burial mound of the NRX calandria, as seen earlier this month. Later this spring, a project team will resume work on excavating and then cutting up the calandria for longer term storage.CANADIAN NUCLEAR LABORATORIES/SUPPLIED
Please subscribe to the National Observer using this link, to support the excellent investigative journalism of Natasha Bulowski on the Chalk River nuclear waste.
Former employee at Atomic Energy of Canada Limited Kerry Burns (centre right, with a beard and spectacles) at AECL’s Whiteshell Laboratories in Manitoba in 1979. Photo submitted by Kerry Burns
Approval of a nuclear waste disposal site near the Ottawa River hinged on a promise that only low-level radioactive waste would be accepted. But former nuclear industry employees and experts warn some waste slated for disposal contains unacceptably high levels of long-lived radioactive material.
The “near-surface disposal facility” at Chalk River Laboratories (CRL) will store up to one million cubic metres of current and future low-level radioactive waste inside a shallow mound about one kilometre from the river, which provides drinking water to millions of people in the region. But former employees who spent decades working at the labs in waste management and analysis say previous waste-handling practices were inadequate, imprecise and not up to modern standards. Different levels of radioactive material were mixed together, making it unacceptable to bury in the mound.
“Anything pre-2000 is anybody’s guess what the hell they have on their hands,” said Gregory Csullog, a retired waste inventory specialist and former longtime employee of Atomic Energy of Canada Limited (AECL), the Crown corporation that ran the federal government’s nuclear facilities before the Harper government privatized it in 2015.
Gregory Csullog pictured at the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository in 2001 while employed with the International Atomic Energy Agency. Photo submitted by Gregory Csullog
Csullog described the waste during this earlier time as an unidentifiable “mishmash” of intermediate- and low-level radioactivity because there were inadequate systems to properly label, characterize, store and track what was produced at Chalk River or shipped there from other labs. “Literally, there were no rules,” said Csullog, who was hired in 1982 to develop waste identification and tracking systems.
International safety standards state low-level radioactive waste is suitable for disposal in various facilities, ranging from near the surface to 30 metres underground, depending primarily on how long it remains radioactive. High-level waste, like used fuel rods, must be buried hundreds to thousands of metres underground in stable rock formations and remain there, effectively forever. Intermediate-level waste is somewhere in the middle and should be buried tens to hundreds of metres underground, not in near-surface disposal facilities, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
Radioactive waste is recognized by many health authorities as cancer-causing and its longevity makes disposal a thorny issue. Even short-lived radioactive waste typically takes hundreds of years to decay to extremely low levels and some radioactive isotopes like tritium found in the waste — a byproduct of nuclear reactors — are especially hard to remove from water.
What people are reading
Canadian Nuclear Laboratories (CNL) originally wanted its near-surface disposal facility to take intermediate- and low-level waste when it first proposed the project in 2016. Backlash was swift and concerned groups, including Deep River town council and multiple experts, argued it would transgress international standards to put intermediate-level waste in that type of facility. In 2017, CNL changed its proposal and promised to only accept low-level waste. The announcement quelled the Deep River town council’s concern, but some citizen groups, scientists, former employees and many Algonquin Nations aren’t buying it.
CNL says its waste acceptance criteria will ensure all the waste will be low-level and comply with international and Canadian standards. Eighty seven per cent of the waste will be loose soil and debris from environmental remediation and decommissioned buildings. The other 13 per cent “will have sufficiently high radionuclide content to require use of packaging” in containers, drums or steel boxes in the disposal facility, according to CNL.
Approval of a nuclear waste disposal site near the Ottawa River hinged on a promise that only low-level radioactive waste would be accepted. #ChalkRiverLabs
However, project opponents note that between 2016 and 2019, about 90 per cent of the intermediate-level waste inventory at federal sites was reclassified as low-level, according to data from AECL and a statement from CNL. The timing of the reclassification raised the alarm for critics, who took it to mean intermediate-level waste was inappropriately categorized as low-level so it could be stored in the Chalk River disposal facility. CNL said the 2016 estimate was based on overly “conservative assumptions” and the waste was reclassified after some legacy waste was retrieved, examined and found to be low-level.
The disposal facility will also accept waste generated over the next two decades and some shipments from hospitals and universities.
The history of Chalk River Laboratories
To fully understand the nuclear waste problem, you first have to know the history of Chalk River Lab’s operations and accidents, according to Mahdi Khelfaoui, professor of the history of energy, science and technology at the University of Quebec at Trois-Rivières and author of multiple articles on the nuclear industry and its history in Canada.
Chalk River Laboratories photographed in 1945. Photo from the National Research Council Canada archives
Chalk River is Canada’s biggest research facility. Built in 1944, it became home to the world’s first recorded nuclear reactor core meltdown in December 1952, followed by another incident in 1958. The 1952 accident was ranked a five on the International Atomic Energy Agency’s scale of one to seven; Chernobyl was a seven.
The partial reactor meltdown spewed radioactive material into the air and environment. During the year-long cleanup, highly radioactive debris and fuel rods were buried in a sandy area near the Ottawa River and millions of litres of contaminated water were dumped into ditches less than two kilometres from the river.
In this day and age, burying wooden boxes of fuel rods in shallow holes would be unthinkable, said Khelfaoui.
“At the time, the radioactive waste issue was almost synonymous with protecting the [commercial] interests of the nuclear industry,” said Khelfaoui. Public involvement in waste management policy was “nonexistent” before the end of the 1990s, he said.
Keeping accurate information on waste over time is a challenge and there have been inventory discrepancies at Chalk River, he added.
For example, the fuel rods buried in a “rudimentary” fashion after the 1952 meltdown were dug up and moved to safer storage in 2007, said Khelfaoui. AECL expected to find 19 fuel rods and cans in the boxes, but there were actually 32.
Over 75 years, Chalk River Laboratories developed CANDU reactors, did nuclear weapons research, supplied the United States’ nuclear weapons program with plutonium and uranium, and at one time was the world’s largest supplier of medical isotopes used to diagnose and treat cancers.
Chalk River Labs’ isotope separation laboratory in 1948. For 60 years, Chalk River Labs produced medical isotopes used to treat and diagnose diseases like cancer. Photo from the National Research Council Canada archives
Inherent inventory issues
Until the mid-1990s, waste wasn’t even categorized as intermediate, low or high-level, said Csullog, who worked at AECL back when the Crown corporation still ran day-to-day operations at Chalk River Laboratories. Much of it was stored together in what he described as a “mishmash of unsegregated, unmarked, uncharacterized mixture of low- and intermediate-level waste.”
“This mixing and lack of identification would make all these wastes unsuitable for the near-surface disposal facility,” said Csullog.
His main concern is the packaged legacy waste, which includes contaminated protective gear, old mops, rags, tools and lab equipment from former operations. For example, some of this equipment was used to clean up highly radioactive water that leaked out of the site’s two nuclear reactors, said Csullog.
A historic photo of the National Research Experimental Reactor (NRX). NRX began operation in 1947 as Canada’s first large-scale research reactor and played a major role in developing the CANDU reactor. It was used to test fuels and materials and for nuclear physics research in support of the Canadian nuclear power program, according to the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission. NRX was shut down on Jan. 29, 1992. Photo courtesy of Canadian Nuclear Laboratories
During his 21 years at AECL’s Chalk River Laboratories, Csullog developed programs to label and track all the radioactive waste created or shipped to the site. He later wrote the International Atomic Energy Agency’s guidelines on waste inventory record-keeping systems.
Developing these programs for AECL posed a challenge because many of the logbooks he was given to transcribe at the outset of his work in 1982 had precious little information on where the waste came from, how it was created or its radionuclide content. Csullog described the information in these historical records as “meaningless.” Until the mid-’90s, there weren’t even waste package labels to link waste to the correct paperwork, which also hindered his work, said Csullog.
“We didn’t track it. You can’t throw it all together and say, ‘We’ll use historical information.’ It’s irrelevant,” said Csullog.
In an email statement to Canada’s National Observer, CNL said the radioactivity of the legacy waste packages is based on records from its waste database. “CNL recognizes there are gaps” in this data and said no waste will be placed in the facility based only on historic information. Data on older legacy waste data will be reassessed and “modern analysis techniques” used to ensure there is “enough information on the waste” to make certain it meets the acceptance criteria.
The majority of packaged waste now in storage was generated pre-1995 and there is enough information to classify it as low-level waste “within a reasonable certainty,” a CNL representative told the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) during the licensing process. All waste generators have to submit documents detailing the properties of the waste and then it’s up to CNL to verify the waste matches the documentation before it goes into the disposal facility.
Even after Csullog’s waste identification and tracking program was implemented in the mid-’90s, some waste with higher radioactivity was still compacted with really low-level material when it should have been kept separate, said Csullog.This was done so the radiation emitted by each bale was limited enough for people to handle and move them but in hindsight, was a mistake, he said. At this period in time, the industry was on a learning curve when it came to waste management, said Csullog.
It takes a “very, very small amount of a contaminant that’s long-lived” to make low-level waste transition to intermediate, Csullog emphasized.
By the time Csullog left the Crown corporation in 1999, his final iteration of a waste inventory database was being used for package labelling, validation, inspection and compliance monitoring. While it was a vast improvement on past practices, the program still relied on estimates of waste characteristics and only helped keep tabs on newly created wastes — not the pre-2000’s waste Csullog says is unacceptable for the facility. Estimates are not a substitute for the more involved process of characterization,a process to verify the specific type and concentrations of radionuclides,said Csullog, but it helps identify which waste should be a priority and make a plan to verify its characteristics. Radionuclides are radioactive atoms.
To safely manage, dispose and store waste, it must first be characterized so you know how long the radionuclides take to decay and can then accurately classify waste as low or intermediate level based on their disposal requirements, said Kerry Burns, an expert on radioactive waste characterization methods who worked at AECL for 25 years and the IAEA for eight years.
In either case, Csullog said when he returned to AECL in 2006 after a stint working for the IAEA, his program that estimated waste characteristics and tracked them had been “abandoned.” The outstanding question in Csullog’s mind is what has been done to take its place.
In a detailed submission to the CNSC, Csullog outlined the many problems with waste identification and inventory systems during his time at AECL and the persistent lack of data to verify the radionuclide content of this older waste.
Csullog emphasized he is not against the disposal facility as a whole. He is against CNL putting this particular legacy waste into it. Instead, CNL should put this legacy waste into a deeper facility designed for intermediate-level waste since it will have to dispose of other intermediate-level waste anyway, he said.
A majority of the waste planned for disposal in the near-surface facility is soil and debris from decommissioned buildings. Most of the buildings decommissioned so far were administrative and likely had little contamination and CNL could feasibly have enough information on the radioactive properties, said Csullog. But the site’s wide range of research and development activities exposed lab equipment and some buildings to many different radioactive materials. For example, some labs separated plutonium for the U.S. weapons program, said Burns.
Kerry Burns, longtime AECL employee and radioactive waste characterization expert, outside his home in 2024. Photo submitted by Kerry Burns
Because of the site’s wide-ranging activities, it is unknown exactly what concentrations of radionuclides are in the legacy waste, said Burns.
The radionuclides typically encountered at Chalk River Labs have half-lives ranging from seconds to tens of thousands of years and can give off three different types of radiation. Low-level waste should decay to extremely low levels within roughly 300 years. As radionuclides decay, some of them turn into other radionuclides with different properties, which is vital to know when you’re planning how to store waste, said Burns.
Some controlled activities — like operating a nuclear power plant — produce waste with fairly predictable types and amounts of radionuclides. As long as these predictable waste streams are kept separate, you can often measure, sample and analyze it, said Burns, who spent years at AECL developing radiochemical analysis methods to determine exact properties of waste, and authored multiple articles on these methods.
But these methods only work if the waste is consistent, monitored carefully over time and kept separate from other waste streams, said Burns.
“I am afraid that the legacy and decommissioning wastes at CNL fall into the category of a dog’s breakfast,” said Burns. To know exactly how dangerous and long-lived the materials going into the facility truly are, a detailed analysis of each package and container would be required, said Burns.
According to CNL’s waste acceptance criteria, radiochemical analysis is not part of its minimum verification requirements, though it may be done as an additional verification measure.
Canada’s National Observer asked CNL which waste streams, if any, have had their radionuclide content confirmed using radiochemical analysis.
CNL said radiochemical analysis and background information are used to create “fingerprints” for waste streams based on what background information and past data exist on the waste.
“Some fingerprints have been established, while others are still in development,” said CNL. The company gave no specifics on which waste streams were examined using radiochemical analysis.
All waste will have “sufficient characterization data” to confirm it can be placed in the near-surface disposal facility, according to CNL.
Radiochemical analysis is “prohibitively expensive” and “extremely time-consuming” but is the only way to determine the inventory of long-lived, hard-to-detect radionuclides in thiswaste, said Burns. This chemical analysis becomes even more challenging when waste from different operations is mixed together, as Csullog and Burns said was the case for a great deal of waste pre-2000. If a sample isn’t representative of the whole waste stream, the results won’t reflect everything in it, said Burns.
Canada’s National Observer asked CNL if it has a budget or cost estimate for radiochemical analysis and which wastes will require this analysis. CNL declined to answer.
CNL is responsible for ensuring waste meets its acceptance criteria.CNL is owned by a consortium of private companies (including AtkinsRealis, formerly SNC-Lavalin). AECL receives federal funding and contracts CNL to manage and run the federal sites, including Chalk River.
Minimum requirements for verification include inspecting waste package labels and providing documents on the waste profile and management plan. CNL’s waste acceptance criteria doesn’t specify how often verification takes place. CNL declined to explain how frequently it would verify waste.
Chalk River Laboratories photographed from the Ottawa River in 1945. It was constructed in 1944. Photo from the National Research Council Canada archives
Csullog and Burns can only speak to the waste management practices from their time at Chalk River. Burns’ team at AECL used radiochemical analysis paired with another group’s measurements to characterize the mixed waste that was compacted into bales. These bales are on the lower end of radioactivity compared to other operations waste and the characterization data showed even those are unsuitable for the disposal facility, said Csullog.
CNL could have adequate systems and practices in place to characterize and track waste being generated today, they say, though neither is convinced based on the company’s submissions to the CNSC. But proper waste management today doesn’t change the fact that the Chalk River site is dealing with waste from an era when far less was known about the importance of handling radioactive waste, said Csullog.
“It was a good place to work … but when it came to waste management, it was always sort of the lowest priority,” said Burns, referring to AECL back in his day. “You’re dealing with a research site where people get rewarded for publishing papers, for doing innovative research, not for handling wastes and putting it in storage.”
Natasha Bulowski / Local Journalism Initiative / Canada’s National Observer
Citizens’ groups from Ontario and Quebec warn that radioactive waste destined for a giant mound beside the Ottawa River must be stored underground
The groups call on the federal government to halt the project and stop all funding for construction
Ottawa, February 5, 2024 — Citizens’ groups have issued an urgent warning about waste slated for disposal in a giant radioactive waste mound one kilometre from the Ottawa River, upstream from Ottawa, Gatineau and Montreal. The groups cite nuclear experts who say the waste will remain hazardous to the public for many thousands of years and needs to be emplaced underground.
In a letter sent on February 4 to elected officials, the citizens’ groups call for the Government of Canada to halt the disposal project and stop all funding for construction. The letter cites evidence that waste destined for the mound is heavily contaminated with very long-lived radioactive materials produced in nuclear reactors, which are capable of causing cancer, birth defects and genetic mutations in exposed populations.
The seven-storey radioactive mound is known as the “Near Surface Disposal Facility” (NSDF). It was recently licenced by the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC). The CNSC is widely perceived to be a captured regulator that promotes the projects it is supposed to regulate, as reported by an Expert Panel in 2017.
If built, the mound will hold one million tons of radioactive and other hazardous waste from eight decades of operations of the Chalk River Laboratories (CRL), a highly contaminated federal nuclear research facility owned by the Government of Canada. Commercial waste and waste imported from other federal nuclear sites would also be put into the mound.
The site for the NSDF is on the CRL property, 180 km northwest of Canada’s capital, on the Ottawa River directly across from the Province of Quebec. Studies show the mound would leak during operation and break down due to erosion after a few hundred years, contaminating the Ottawa River, the source of drinking water for millions of Canadians.
Concerned Citizens of Renfrew County and Area, the Old Fort William (Quebec) Cottagers’ Association, Ralliement contre la pollution radioactive, and the Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility have been opposing the giant radioactive waste mound since 2016. They say there is widespread ignorance about what would go in the mound due to repeated statements by the regulator and the proponent that “it’s only low level waste.”
“If I hear one more time that the mound will hold ‘only low-level’ radioactive waste including mops and shoe covers, I’m going to scream so loud they will hear me at the IAEA headquarters in Vienna,” said Johanna Echlin of the Old Fort William (Quebec) Cottagers’ Association. “People need to wake up and realize the truth that this waste is full of deadly long-lived, man-made radioactive poisons such as plutonium that will be hazardous for many thousands of years.”
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) referred to by Echlin says waste from research facilities such as Chalk River Laboratories generally belongs to the “Intermediate-level” waste class and must be kept underground, tens of metres or more below the surface.
A former senior manager in charge of “legacy” radioactive waste at Chalk River told the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission that, in reality, the waste proposed for emplacement in the NSDF “is ‘intermediate level waste’ that requires a greater degree of containment and isolation than that provided by a near surface facility.” He pointed out the mound would be hazardous and radioactive for many thousands of years, and that radiation doses from the facility will, in the future, exceed regulatory limits.
“We believe Cabinet or Parliament has the power to reverse this decision and they need to do so as soon as possible,” said Lynn Jones of Concerned Citizens of Renfrew County and Area. “It’s clear that the only benefit from the NSDF would go to shareholders of the three multinational corporations involved, AtkinsRéalis (formerly SNC-Lavalin), Fluor and Jacobs. Everyone else would get only harm—a polluted Ottawa River, plummeting property values, increased health risks, never-ending costs to remediate the mess and a big black mark on Canada’s international reputation.”
The citizens’ groups say Canada should commit to building world class facilities for managing radioactive waste that would keep Canadians safe and provide good jobs in the nuclear industry, safely managing and containing the waste for generations to come.
The cleanup of the Chalk River Laboratories site was originally estimated to cost $8 billion in 2015 when a multinational consortium called “Canadian National Energy Alliance”** was contracted by the Harper government to manage the Chalk River site and clean up the radioactive waste there and at other federally owned facilities.
Since the consortium took over, the annual costs to Canadian taxpayers for the operation and cleanup at Canada’s nuclear labs have ballooned from $336 million dollars per year to over $1.5 billion per year.
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**The consortium known as Canadian National Energy Alliance is comprised of AtkinsRéalis(formerly SNC-Lavalin,) which was debarred by the World Bank for 10 years and faced charges in Canada of fraud, bribery and corruption; Texas-based Fluor Corporation, which paid $4 million to resolve allegations of financial fraud related to nuclear waste cleanup work at a U.S. site; and Texas-based Jacobs Engineering, which recently acquired CH2M, an original consortium member that agreed to pay $18.5 million to settle federal criminal charges at the same nuclear cleanup site in the U.S.
Des groupes de citoyens de l’Ontario et du Québec soutiennent que certains déchets destinés à une gigantesque décharge de déchets radioactifs, près de la rivière des Outaouais, devraient être enfouis en profondeur.
Les groupes demandent au gouvernement d’interrompre le projet et de refuser son financement.
Ottawa, le 5 février 2024 — Des groupes de citoyens ont lancé un avertissement urgent au sujet des déchets radioactifs qui seraient enfouis dans une gigantesque décharge sur une colline, à 1 km de la rivière des Outaouais en amont d’Ottawa, Gatineau et Montréal. Ces groupes citent des experts dans le domaine du nucléaire qui affirment que certains déchets seront fortement radioactifs pendant des milliers d’années et que nous devons les enfouir en profondeur pour protéger la population.
La Commission canadienne de sûreté nucléaire (CCSN) a approuvé récemment cette déchargé haute comme un édifice de sept étages, connue sous le nom d’Installation de gestion des déchets près de la surface (IGDPS).
L’IGDPS est sur le site des Laboratoires nucléaires canadiens (LNC), à 180 km au nord-ouest d’Ottawa, sur la rivière des Outaouais, juste en face de la province de Québec. Des études démontrent que cette décharge de déchets aura des fuites radioactives pendant son exploitation et qu’elle s’effondrera après quelques centaines d’années à cause de l’érosion. Cela contaminera la rivière des Outaouais, source d’eau potable de millions de Canadiens.
Concerned Citizens of Renfrew County and Area, l’Association des propriétaires de chalets d’Old Fort William, le Ralliement contre la pollution radioactive et le Regroupement pour la surveillance du nucléaire figurent parmi les nombreux organismes qui critiquent depuis 2016 la conception de cette décharge géante de déchets radioactifs. Selon eux, l’information est trop vague concernant les déchets destinés à l’IGDPS même si la Commission de sureté nucléaire et les Laboratoires nucléaires canadiens ont affirmé à plusieurs reprises que seulement des déchets radioactifs de faible activité y seront placés.
” Les installations de gestion des déchets près de la surface ne conviennent pas aux déchets radioactifs de moyenne activité qu’on voulait y mettre au début, “déclare Ginette Charbonneau du Ralliement contre la pollution radioactive. ” À la suite des protestations du public, les promoteurs du projet disent maintenant que l’IGDPS n’acceptera que des déchets de faible activité. Malheureusement, ce n’est pas crédible. Il est très difficile de séparer des déchets de faible activité et de moyenne activité qui ont été stockés ensemble dans des colis non marqués. Il est donc inévitable qu’il y ait encore des déchets de moyenne activité dans cette décharge en surface. C’est très dangereux “.
Johanna Echlin de l’Association des propriétaires de chalets d’Old Fort William (Québec) mentionne que l’Agence internationale de l’énergie atomique (AIEA) est l’organisme responsable de la sûreté et de la sécurité nucléaires au niveau mondial. Selon l’AIEA, les déchets hérités par les Laboratoires de Chalk River sont de “moyenne activité ” et ils devraient être enfouis à des dizaines ou des centaines de mètres sous terre.
Les groupes de citoyens citent également les déclarations de James R. Walker (Ph.D), un ancien cadre supérieur responsable des déchets radioactifs hérités des Laboratoires de Chalk River. M. Walker énonce clairement dans ses commentaires à la CCSN que certains déchets destinés à l’IGDPS sont des ” déchets de moyenne activité ” qui nécessitent plutôt un stockage souterrain. Il affirme que la décharge serait dangereusement radioactive pendant des milliers d’années et que les radiations provenant de l’installation dépasseraient les niveaux autorisés.
” Le Cabinet et le Parlement ont le pouvoir et le devoir de renverser cette décision le plus tôt possible “, déclare Lynn Jones de Concerned Citizens of Renfrew County and Area. ” Il est clair que les actionnaires d’Atkins Realis (anciennement SNC-Lavalin), de Fluor et de Jacobs seront les seuls à bénéficier du projet d’IGDPS. Tous les autres n’en tireraient que des problèmes : pollution de la rivière des Outaouais, risques sanitaires accrus, coûts de nettoyage astronomiques et une grande tache noire sur la réputation internationale du Canada “.
Dans une lettre envoyée le 5 février aux élus et aux responsables locaux, les groupes de citoyens demandent au gouvernement canadien de stopper ce projet et de couper son financement. Les études menées par le promoteur lui-même démontrent clairement que les déchets destinés à l’IGDPS sont fortement contaminés par de grandes quantités de substances radioactives de très longue durée de vie provenant des réacteurs nucléaires, expliquent-ils dans leur lettre. Ces déchets pourraient provoquer des cancers, des malformations congénitales et des mutations génétiques chez les populations exposées.
Le Canada devrait s’engager à construire des installations de gestion des déchets radioactifs de classe mondiale, afin de garantir la sécurité des Canadiens et de créer de bons emplois dans l’industrie nucléaire, tout en gérant les déchets de manière sûre pour les générations futures, disent ces groupes de citoyens.
Le coût de la dépollution du site des Laboratoires de Chalk River a été estimé à 8 milliards de dollars lorsque le site a été confié au secteur privé par le gouvernement Harper en 2015. Le consortium multinational appelé “Canadian National Energy Alliance “**, dirigé par SNC-Lavalin (aujourd’hui appelé Atkins Realis), a remporté le contrat de plusieurs milliards de dollars pour gérer et nettoyer “rapidement et à moindre coût” le site de Chalk River et d’autres sites fédéraux. Depuis que le consortium a pris le relais, les contribuables canadiens ont vu le coût d’exploitation des Laboratoires nucléaires canadiens (autrefois les Laboratoires de Chalk River) gonfler de 336 millions de dollars par an à plus de 1,5 milliard de dollars par année.
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**Le consortium connu sous le nom de Canadian National Energy Alliance est composé d’Atkins Realis (anciennement SNC-Lavalin), qui a été radié par la Banque mondiale pendant 10 ans et qui a fait l’objet d’accusations de fraude, de pots-de-vin et de corruption au Canada. La société texane Fluor Corporation a payé 4 millions de dollars pour mettre fin à des allégations de fraude financière liées à des travaux de nettoyage de déchets radioactifs sur un site américain ; et la société texane Jacobs Engineering, qui a récemment acquis CH2M, un membre initial du consortium, a accepté de payer 18,5 millions de dollars pour mettre fin à des accusations criminelles fédérales sur un site de nettoyage de déchets radioactifs aux États-Unis.
“A decision to approve the construction of a nuclear waste storage facility two hours west of Ottawa has led Indigenous leaders, activists and experts to voice concerns about what they describe as fundamental aws within Canada’s nuclear regulator.”
“Critics of the decision believe the recent approval is the latest example of the CNSC prioritizing the nuclear industry over Canadians, which they say stems from a lack of regulatory independence.”
“Bloc Québécois MP Monique Pauzé lamented the approval what she described in French as an “insane and inconceivable project.”
“Ottawa confirms to us the bogus status of the hearings conducted by the CNSC where the Commission heard the opposition of multiple stakeholders only to nally brush them aside in the decision rendered yesterday,” Pauzé said in a statement.”
Ottawa River radioactive waste dump ~ license approved by the CNSC
January 13, 2024
Dear Friends
Yesterday afternoon Canada’s captured nuclear regulator, the CNSC, announced its approval of the license to build the giant above-ground radioactive waste mound beside the Ottawa River, aka the NSDF. See below a few links to good coverage of reactions to the announcement.
There was never any doubt that the CNSC would approve the license. The surprise is how long it took them to do so — seven and a half years! That is a testament to the incredible opposition that mobilized to fight the ill-conceived plan. In a David and Goliath battle, opponents effectively derailed the original plan of the CNSC and the consortium to have shovels in the ground six years ago, in January 2018. That is an accomplishment worth celebrating!
The battle is not over. It will move to the courts now. And along with our allies, we will continue to push for an international ARTEMIS review of the proposal. On that note, thank you to everyone who signed and shared House of Commons e-Petition 4676; the petition just closed for signatures today having been signed by well over 3000 Canadians in just 30 days. A meeting with MP Sophie Chatel about how to move the request for an ARTEMIS review forward will take place soon. Other next steps are in the works and we will keep you posted about them as the plans crystalize.
We are very grateful to our Algonquin brothers and sisters for their strong stand against irresponsible nuclear waste projects in their unceded territory. We look forward to continuing to work with them toward an ultimate victory at some point down the road.
This seems a good time to share the inspiring words of Algonquin Elder Claudette Commanda, delivered during a press conference at 50 Sussex Drive on August 10, 2023. The press conference can be viewed at this link and Claudette’s statement begins at 13 minutes. Here is some of what she said that day, to rousing applause:
“This nuclear waste facility will damage the water and we all know that.
Conscientious people are rising. We must rise together, we are all in that medicine wheel. No matter our colour, our creed or our title, we are all related in the human family and we must stand together
We have a responsibility to our brothers the animals, to our sisters the animals. To the water life and to the land.
We cannot stop the thunder.
We cannot stop the rain from falling.
We cannot stop the lightning from shining
We cannot stop the rivers from flowing
But together as human beings, as brothers and sisters, we can certainly stop the nuclear waste facility from coming here on the Ottawa River.Meegwetch”
Thank you everyone for your ongoing interest and support. Please feel free to forward this message to anyone you think might be interested. Good overviews for people new to the issue are here and here.
NUCLEAR WASTE AT CHALK RIVER: KEBAOWEK FIRST NATION CONDEMNS CNSC DECISION AND CALLS ON THE CANADIAN GOVERNMENT
KEBAOWEK, January 9, 2024 – Despite concerns expressed by First Nations and increased support from over 140 municipalities across Canada, the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) has granted the license for the Near Surface Disposal Facility (NSDF) project at Chalk River. In response, the Kebaowek First Nation strongly condemns this decision and calls on the federal government to intervene to stop this environmentally high-risk project.
“The Commission’s decision is unacceptable, notably because it goes against the rights of Indigenous peoples and environmental protection. The Canadian government must act promptly and immediately assert the suspension of the project. The Commission’s final decision is totally wrong when it states that the NSDF project will not cause significant environmental effects. While the decision states that CNL will take appropriate measures to safeguard the environment, the health, safety of individuals, and national security and to comply with national obligations, it is undeniable that the safety and health of people and the environment will be profoundly impacted for generations to come through this project, ” reacted Chief Lance Haymond of Kebaowek.
It is worth noting that the NSDF would release radioactive and hazardous materials into a nearby wetland and the Ottawa River during its operation and after its closure. The mound is expected to degrade through a process of “normal evolution”. The NSDF could also contaminate the river following earthquakes, wildfires, floods, and other extreme weather events. Not only is the Kichi Sibi sacred to the Algonquin Peoples, but the Chalk River site is also close to the sacred Algonquin sites of Oiseau Rock and Baptism Point.
In 2017, the Assembly of First Nations adopted a resolution stating that the CNSC and the Canadian government had not fulfilled their constitutional obligation to consult and accommodate First Nations regarding the NSDF. The Anishinabek Nation and the Iroquois caucus issued a joint statement on radioactive waste, asserting that “we must protect the land, water, and all living beings for future generations” and calling for no abandonment of radioactive waste, moving it away from major waterways, and eliminating the practice of importing or exporting radioactive waste.
In addition to the opposition of Algonquin First Nations to the project, over 140 municipalities in Quebec and Ontario, including Gatineau and Montreal, as well as several civil society organizations, have expressed their opposition to the NSDF plan. In 2021, the City of Ottawa adopted a resolution expressing its concern.
The Kebaowek First Nation, committed to defending the rights of Indigenous peoples and environmental preservation, expresses its eagerness to collaborate with the government and other stakeholders to ensure a careful consideration of Indigenous concerns and compliance with the obligations of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) in the context of this project. The First Nation maintains its categorical opposition to the establishment of a permanent NSDF on unceded Anishinabe territory, emphasizing the crucial importance of protecting Indigenous rights, the environment, and cultural heritage. Faced with a lack of trust in the CNSC and its persistent failure to uphold UNDRIP, the First Nation calls on the federal government, including the Minister of Environment and Natural Resources, to intervene and end the project.
“I want to be very clear: the Algonquin Peoples did not consent to the construction of this radioactive waste dump on our unceded territory. We believe the consultation was inadequate, to say the least, and that our Indigenous rights are threatened by this proposal. We demand the cancellation of the NSDF project. The focus should instead be on a real and successful cleanup of the site to permanently eliminate old radioactive waste,” explains Chief Haymond.
Kebaowek First Nation Chief Lance Haymond speaking at a press conference in Ottawa in June 2023
Il est grand temps que le gouvernement s’occupe de cette catastrophe environnementale en devenir, un problème grave qui s’aggravera si on l’ignore.
OTTAWA – Le 10 août, la Commission canadienne de sûreté nucléaire a tenu une audience finale sur l’autorisation d’un gigantesque dépôt de déchets radioactifs en surface près de la rivière des Outaouais, en amont d’Ottawa-Gatineau et de Montréal, à Chalk River (Ontario), qui a créé un précédent.
Des délégations de trois Premières Nations algonquines – Kebaowek, Kitigan Zibi et Barriere Lake – se sont réunies au 50 Sussex Dr. à Ottawa pour faire leurs présentations finales en personne aux membres de la communauté, aux alliés non autochtones et à une poignée de représentants élus, au mépris d’un décret de la Commission canadienne de sûreté nucléaire (CCSN) stipulant que l’audience ne serait que virtuelle. La CCSN a présidé l’audience via Zoom.
Pendant l’audience, une tempête sans précédent s’est abattue sur le site, avec d’énormes quantités de pluie, de tonnerre, de grêle et de vent qui ont soufflé sur les chaises de la terrasse extérieure couverte où la foule en surnombre regardait les débats. Malgré la férocité de l’orage, les aînés algonquins ont entretenu un feu sacré cérémoniel tout au long de la cérémonie.
Si le projet est approuvé, la décharge géante, appelée “installation de stockage en surface” (IGDPS) par le promoteur, contiendrait un million de tonnes de déchets radioactifs et dangereux dans un monticule en surface sur la propriété des laboratoires de Chalk River, une installation nucléaire fédérale fortement contaminée établie sur des terres algonquines volées en 1944 afin de produire du plutonium pour les armes nucléaires américaines. Les laboratoires de Chalk River représentent un énorme passif environnemental pour le gouvernement du Canada, avec un coût de dépollution estimé à plusieurs milliards de dollars.
Le promoteur de la décharge est un consortium multinational composé de SNC-Lavalin et de deux multinationales basées au Texas : Fluor et Jacobs. Le consortium a été engagé par le gouvernement conservateur en 2015 pour réduire rapidement et à moindre coût l’énorme responsabilité fédérale en matière de déchets nucléaires hérités. Paradoxalement, les coûts pour les contribuables de la gestion des déchets radioactifs hérités du gouvernement fédéral canadien ont grimpé à plus d’un milliard de dollars par an après la privatisation.
L’audition du 10 août a créé un précédent à deux égards. Si elle est approuvée, l’IGDPS sera la toute première installation de stockage permanent des déchets de réacteurs nucléaires au Canada. Deuxièmement, la décision d’autoriser ou non l’installation est un test important de l’engagement du Canada envers la Déclaration des Nations unies sur les droits des peuples autochtones, qui interdit le stockage de déchets radioactifs sur les terres des peuples autochtones sans leur consentement libre, préalable et éclairé. Dix des onze Premières nations algonquines, dont les membres vivent dans la vallée de l’Outaouais depuis des temps immémoriaux, ont déclaré qu’elles ne consentaient pas à ce que l’ IGDPS soit implanté sur leur territoire non cédé.
Bon nombre des déchets qu’il est proposé d’éliminer dans le NSDF resteront dangereux et radioactifs pendant des milliers, voire des millions d’années, selon le Dr. J.R. Walker, le plus grand expert canadien en matière de déchets radioactifs hérités du gouvernement fédéral et de la meilleure façon de les gérer. M. Walker a clairement indiqué que les déchets proposés pour l’IGDPS ne sont pas des déchets de faible activité, mais des déchets radioactifs de “niveau intermédiaire” qui devraient être éliminés à des dizaines, voire des centaines de mètres sous la surface du sol. Il a également affirmé que la proposition n’était pas conforme aux normes de sécurité internationales.
Le site proposé pour l’IGDPS se trouve sur le flanc d’une colline entourée de zones humides qui se jettent dans la rivière des Outaouais, à moins d’un kilomètre de là.
La déclaration d’impact sur l’environnement du promoteur documente les nombreuses façons dont la décharge pourrait fuir pendant son exploitation et après sa fermeture. Trois isotopes du plutonium figurent sur la longue liste des radionucléides qui seraient rejetés dans la rivière des Outaouais dans les “effluents traités” de la décharge. Le monticule devrait se dégrader, s’éroder et finalement se désintégrer en raison de “l’évolution naturelle”.
La plupart des gens pensent qu’il est répréhensible de déverser délibérément des matières radioactives dans une importante source d’eau potable telle que la rivière des Outaouais, car il n’existe pas de niveau d’exposition sûr à ces poisons fabriqués par l’homme. Chaque rejet accidentel ou délibéré augmente les risques de cancer, de malformations congénitales et de dommages génétiques chez les populations exposées.
L’Assemblée des Premières Nations et plus de 140 municipalités situées en aval, dont Ottawa, Gatineau et Montréal, ont adopté des résolutions exprimant leur inquiétude à l’égard de la proposition du IGDPS.
Malgré les nombreuses lacunes et la forte opposition, le personnel de la Commission canadienne de sûreté nucléaire n’a jamais hésité à soutenir le projet de décharge. Il semble qu’il n’ait jamais reçu le mémo en 2000 lorsque le mandat de l’organisation a été modifié par une nouvelle législation, passant d’un rôle de promotion de l’industrie nucléaire à un mandat strictement axé sur la protection des Canadiens et de l’environnement.
L’audience du 10 août a été présidée par un seul commissaire, ainsi que par la présidente de la CCSN. Leurs curriculum vitae respectifs font état de longs états de service et d’allégeance à l’industrie nucléaire. Les deux fonctionnaires n’ont pas posé une seule question aux équipes d’intervenants des Premières nations, qui étaient manifestement choquées par le manque d’intérêt pour les informations qu’elles s’étaient donné tant de mal à rassembler et à partager. Un membre de l’équipe a demandé : “Pouvons-nous vous poser des questions ?”, ce à quoi le président a sèchement répondu : “Ce n’est pas notre façon de procéder.”
Le régime de gouvernance nucléaire gravement déficient du Canada a été décrit précédemment dans le Hill Times. La gouvernance nucléaire au Canada s’appuie fortement sur la CCSN pour presque tous les aspects de la surveillance de l’industrie nucléaire. La CCSN est largement perçue comme un “régulateur capturé” qui promeut les projets qu’elle est censée réglementer.
Il est clair que notre régime de gouvernance nucléaire gravement déficient a permis à l’IGDPS – un simulacre grotesque d’installation de gestion responsable des déchets radioactifs – d’être proposée et prise au sérieux au Canada. La décision de la CCSN d’approuver le permis pour l’IGDPS est attendue prochainement.
La puissante tempête qui s’est abattue sur le 50 Sussex Dr. pendant que l’on entendait des témoignages en langue algonquine sur la cupidité et la destruction inconsidérée de l’environnement a souligné la gravité de la décision envisagée. Il ne fait aucun doute qu’une tempête record comme celle qui a frappé l’IGDPS au cours de sa phase de remplissage de 50 ans – alors que les déchets sont exposés aux éléments – pourrait facilement provoquer d’importants déversements de poisons radioactifs et d’autres matières dangereuses dans la rivière des Outaouais.
Il est grand temps que le gouvernement se réveille et s’attaque à cette catastrophe environnementale en cours, un problème grave qui ne fera que s’aggraver au fur et à mesure qu’il sera ignoré.
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Lynn Jones est une gestionnaire de programme de santé publique à la retraite qui travaille maintenant pour Concerned Citizens of Renfrew County and Area, une organisation non gouvernementale qui œuvre depuis plus de 40 ans à l’assainissement et à la prévention de la pollution radioactive provenant de l’industrie nucléaire dans la vallée de l’Outaouais. Elle est basée à Ottawa.
L’image ci-dessous est une simulation de l’effet baignoire tirée du documentaire de Découverte “Chalk River Heritage”.
Concerned Citizens of Renfrew County and Area 