I am sharing with you information
about the leaks of radioactive tritium from the Chalk River nuclear
reactor recently and the attempts by AECL and other regulators to
hide the information. Dr. Gordon Edwards is a physician who has done
years of research on the nuclear industry and his letters of concern
and information are posted at the end of this article.
As you may know, the current
Saskatchewan government is planning to build a nuclear reactor in
Saskatchewan. They want to build it on the North Saskatchewan River,
near, ironically, a place called Paradise Hill or near Borden. The local people do not want it, and
the problem is that there is no safe place to put it.
There is no
safe place for the highly radioactive wastes and the leaks are
constant during normal operations of CANDU reactors. The data is
available about the constant leaks of both radioactive gases and
liquids from the plants, particularly in Ontario.
Germany is decommissioning its
nuclear reactors and converting totally to renewable energy
resources. Ontario is now faced with spending billions on
either decommissioning their aging reactors, or trying to rebuild
around the old cores, a very dangerous prospect. Most of the
United States have cancelled or postponed building new reactors
because of their monolithic danger for hundreds of thousands of
years. The Sask Government is touting nuclear as clean, green energy.
At every level of its cycle, it produces green house gases, and
radioactive contamination for enormous areas around it.
Southern Sasktchewan has very little
fresh water. Nuclear reactors require huge amounts of water for
cooling the core. Our rivers are glacier fed from the
Rockies in Alberta. As you know the glaciers are shrinking. We
need to protect our sources of drinking water. We also need to
protect Diefenbaker Lake and the fish and wildlife in all
of these watersheds. All eventually connects to the web of life
as you probably know.
We have many renewable resources to
create energy for this province from solar, wind and small scale
hydro, as well as conservation and geothermal. A nuclear power
plant will cost $22 billion (the cost of the last one Bruce built in
Ontario). Half of this enormous amount could go to
building safe, sustainable sources of energy for the whole province
for centuries to come.
We need to strongly oppose the
building of a nuclear reactor in this province.
Currently there is a petition
circulating, and soon there are several public events which I could
inform you about if you are interested.
The government plan is to start
building this year I believe.
On April 2nd there is a public
meeting at the Mackenzie Art Gallery theatre at 7.30 pm with a
renwable energy scientist, Tim Weis, from the Pembina Research
Institute in Alberta. (The Alberta government is also considering
building a nuclear reactor. We are down wind.... and they want
to power the Tar Sands with it!!)
On March 28th, Saturday, there may be
a vigil in solidarity with people in Ontario, who are raising
concerns over the aging Pickering Nuclear Power Plants and their
constant leaks.
Correspondence between Dr. Edwards and the CNSC:
From:
Gordon
Edwards <ccnr@
>
Date:
March
13, 2009 12:57:36 AM GMT-06:00
To:
Gordon
Edwards <ccnr@
>
Subject:
Letter
to CNSC regarding radioactive tritium released into the Ottawa River
On December 5, 2008, 48.5
kilograms of heavy water containing 48.5 trillion
becquerels of tritium
(radioactive hydrogen) leaked from the NRU reactor
at Chalk River Ontario.
Gordon Edwards wrote to Michael Binder, President
of the Canadian Nuclear
Safety Commission, asking how much tritium went
into the Ottawa River.
Edwards' letter and Binder's response are posted on
Thank you
for your letter of March 4, 2009, in response to mine of Feb. 16.
Your
letter raises three main concerns:
The first
has to do with the amount of
radioactive tritium deliberately released into the Ottawa River by
AECL with the permission of the CNSC.
The second
has to do with the concept of a “safe” dose of radiation in
general, and a “safe” concentration of tritium in drinking water
in particular.
The third
has to do with the practice of deliberately diluting and releasing
tritium-contaminated water into the Ottawa River.
1.
The amount of radioactive tritium deliberately released into the
River.
You
say that “there was no leak of radioactivity to the river”
because “the water released within the NRU building was collected
and contained” and then was sent to the Waste Treatment Centre,
from which “subsequent releases of tritium to the river have been
controlled and monitored.”
However,
since the Treatment Centre is unable to remove tritium from
contaminated water, all of the radioactive tritium that was sent to
the Treatment Centre did in fact end up in the Ottawa River.
Instead of being “leaked” into the river, it was – as you say –
“released” into the river in a manner which was “controlled and
monitored”. By “controlled” I presume you mean
“diluted”.
Many
people would like to find out just how much radioactive tritium ended
up in the Ottawa river – a question which I posed to you in my
February letter without yet receiving an answer. The answer is
that as a result of the December 5 heavy water leak at the NRU
reactor more than 25 trillion becquerels of tritium ended up in the
Ottawa River.
I believe
the CNSC has a responsibility to communicate this kind of information
in a forthright manner to the citizenry and to their elected
representatives. This responsibility in enshrined in the
Nuclear Safety and Control Act, which obligates the Canadian Nuclear
Safety Commission to “disseminate objective scientific information”
about the activities of the Commission and its licensees.
2.
The concept of a “safe” radiation dose and a “safe”
concentration of tritium in drinking water.
You state
in your letter, “At no time was the public or the environment at
risk.” This is not objective scientific information; this is
an opinion.
I believe
the CNSC is obliged to provide the public with objective scientific
information about the nature of the health risks that accompany
exposure to ionizing radiation.
Much
scientific evidence has existed for many decades on this subject.
The overwhelming consensus is that there is no such thing as a “safe
dose” of exposure to ionizing radiation – or, for that matter, to
any other carcinogen. The US National Academy of Sciences (NAS)
examined claims from the nuclear industry and its proponents that
there might be a “safe threshold” of radiation exposure, and
rejected those claims as having no scientific validity.
In a 2007
press release announcing the publication of the NAS BEIR-VII Report
on the Biological Effects of Ionizing Radiation, we read:
WASHINGTON
(June 2007) — A preponderance of scientific evidence shows that
even low doses of ionizing radiation, such as gamma rays and
X-rays, are likely to pose some risk of adverse health effects,
says a new report from the National Academies' National Research
Council.
The
report's focus is low-dose, low-LET — "linear energy transfer"
— ionizing radiation that is energetic enough to break
biomolecular bonds. In living organisms, such radiation can
cause DNA damage that eventually leads to cancers.
However, more research is needed to determine whether low doses
of radiation may also cause other health problems, such as heart
disease and stroke, which are now seen with high doses of
low-LET radiation.
The study
committee defined low doses as those ranging from nearly zero to
about 100 millisievert (mSv) ….
"The
scientific research base shows that there is no threshold of exposure
below which low levels of ionizing radiation can be
demonstrated to be harmless or beneficial," said committee chair
Richard R. Monson, associate dean for professional education
and professor of epidemiology, Harvard School of Public Health,
Boston.
The
International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP) makes the
same point in a publication that is featured on their current web
site:
Both low
and high doses [of ionizing radiation] may cause stochastic,
i.e.
randomly occurring, effects (cancer and hereditary disorders)…. The
probabilistic nature of the stochastic effects makes it impossible to
make a clear distinction between ‘safe’ and ‘dangerous’, a
fact that causes problems in explaining the control of radiation
risks. The major policy implication of a non-threshold relationship
for stochastic effects is that some finite risk must be accepted at
any level of protection. Zero risk is not an option.
INTERNATIONAL COMMISSION ON
RADIOLOGICAL PROTECTION:
The CNSC,
in keeping with its mandate, should make these easy-to-understand
explanations of radiation risks available on its web site for the
education of Canadian citizens and policy makers, and desist from
misleading Canadians to the contrary.
In
particular, the CNSC should remove from its web site this statement:
Radiation
doses of 100 mSv [millisieverts] and more have shown increases in
cancer incidence but there is no evidence of health effects at doses
below about 100 mSv.
The
statement is scientifically incorrect and misleading. It
suggests that a safe threshold of radiation exposure exists – a
conclusion at odds with the widespread scientific consensus as found
in many documents published by the United Nations Scientific
Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR), the US
National Research Council (NRC), and the International Commission for
Radiological Protection (ICRP).
3.
The practice of diluting and releasing tritium-contaminated water
into the Ottawa River.
The linear
non-threshold relationship espoused by leading authorities in the
field of radiation protection implies that the harmful stochastic
effects from even a low dose of ionizing radiation is proportional to
the number of people exposed. Even diluted tritium levels will
result in additional risk to these exposed populations, including MPs
in the House of Commons.
The Ottawa
River serves as a source of drinking water for more than a million
people. Water treatment facilities cannot remove the
radioactive tritium from drinking water. In light of
these indisputable facts, AECL’s practice of diluting and releasing
tritium-contaminated water into the Ottawa River must be seriously
reassessed.
Quoting
again from the document ICRP:
History, Policies, Procedures:
The major
policy implication of a non-threshold relationship for stochastic
effects is that some finite risk must be accepted at any level of
protection. Zero risk is not an option.
This leads
to the basic system of protection which has three components –
(1) the
justification of a practice, which implies doing more good than harm,
(2) the
optimisation of protection, which implies maximising the margin of
good over harm, and
(3) the
use of dose limits, which implies an adequate standard of protection
even for the most highly exposed individuals.
Over the
years there has been confusion over the meaning of the Commission’s
dose limits.
The
Commission now regards these as being close to the point where the
doses ... result in a level of risk that, if continued, could
legitimately be described as unacceptable.... Compliance with dose
limits is then a necessary, but not a sufficient, condition for
complying with the Commission’s recommendations.
On behalf
of the Tritium Awareness Project, I urge the CNSC to discontinue the
practice of allowing AECL to dilute and release tritium-contaminated
water into the Ottawa River. This practice is unjustified, as
it does no good and only harms the population that drinks the water.
Regulatory
limits must not be regarded as a license to pollute.
Please
share this letter with your fellow Commissioners. I thank you
in advance for your attention to these matters.
Yours very
truly,
Gordon
Edwards, Ph.D.,
e-mail:
phone:
(514) 489 5118
For the
Tritium Awareness Project
cc.
Minister of Natural Resources
Mayors
of Ottawa, Pembroke, and Petawawa
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