Critics accuse nuclear safety official of acting as industry cheerleader

As reported by Gloria Galloway in an article in The Globe and Mail entitled "Critics accuse nuclear safety official of acting as industry cheerleader":

Opposition politicians and environmentalists are questioning the priorities of the man responsible for nuclear safety in Canada after a string of incidents in which he publicly defended the industry and was dismissive of concerns about potential hazards – a stance that runs contrary to his mandate at the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission.

The CNSC was established by the federal government to protect the health and safety of Canadians and to regulate the use, possession and storage of all nuclear substances in Canada. No part of its mission entails promotion of the country’s reactors. But, in the more than eight years that Michael Binder has served as president of the CNSC, he has repeatedly extolled the merits of the nuclear industry and chastised critics who voiced concerns about potential hazards. [see entire article here]

This news article followed a letter, signed by a binational coalition of environmental groups, including Beyond Nuclear, to the Canadian federal Minister of Natural Resources, Jim Carr, who has oversight on the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission. The coalition letter, sent on Oct. 11th, was spearheaded by Ziggy Kleinau, of the Bruce Peninsula Environment Group. (See the French language version of the coalition letter, here.)

 The letter stemmed from a scathing report by the Canadian Federal Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development, regarding significant failures by the CNSC to do its job to protect public health, safety and the environment from nuclear power's risks. Given the two highest CNSC officers' acknowledgment of the accuracy of the Canadian Federal Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development's report, and their refusal to tender their resignations, the environmental coalition urged Minster Carr to relieve the two CNSC leaders of their duties.

See The Globe and Mail's coverage of the Canadian Federal Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development's scathing report about CNSC's failures, here.

Beyond Nuclear -- a "serial intervenor" in the words of the CNSC -- has been involved in many Canadian nuclear proceedings over the past decade. This has included butting heads with CNSC staff, Commissioners, and even its President -- Dr. Binder himself -- on numerous ocassions!

SOS Great Lakes on DGR: ACCIDENTS, MALFUNCTIONS, MALEVOLENT ACTS, AND RELATED CONTINGENCY PLANS: THIRTY EXAMPLES OF FAILURE TO PROPERLY CONSIDER

See SOS Great Lakes' (also known as Save Our Saugeen Shores) analysis of 30 major ways Ontario Power Generation's proposed DGR1* has violated Canadian environmental law and regulation (the "governing documents") when it comes to "accidents, malfunctions, malevolent acts and related contingency plans."

*DGR is short for Deep Geologic Repository. DGR1 refers to OPG's plan to bury and abandon all of Ontario's (20 reactors worth!) so-called "low" and "intermediate" (some of which is considered as highly radioactive as irradiated nuclear fuel itself) radioactive waste less than a mile away from the Lake Huron shore, at its Bruce Nuclear Generating Station (BNGS) in Kincardine, Ontario, Canada.

The designation "1" is needed because of the multiple dumps targeted at various areas of Canada, especially the Great Lakes shore and basin.

DGR2 refers to the highly radioactive irradiated nuclear fuel dump-site for all of Canada (22 reactors worth) -- three municipalities near BNGS and DGR1 are still in the running for that. There is fear that DGR1 and DGR2 could simply be merged into one DGR at some point, in order to save billions, or even tens of billions, of dollars, by avoiding duplication.

DGR3 is a proposed expansion onto DGR1, for decommissioning wastes. Very late in the DGR1 licensing process, opponents pressured Canadian government regulators enough that OPG was required to admit that DGR1's proposed 200,000 cubic meter radioactive waste inventory (comprised of operational and refurbishment wastes) would someday be doubled to 400,000 cubic meters, in order to accommodate 200,000 cubic meters of decommissioning wastes.

Because of such absurdly high risks to the drinking water supply for 40 million people in two countries -- the Great Lakes -- Dave Martin of Greenpeace Canada dubbed the DGR, the DUD (short for Deep Underground Dump).

Canadian Highly Radioactive Liquid Waste truck shipments to South Carolina (potentially through numerous states) formally delayed -- SRS Watch & Canadian news of Oct. 3

Published on Oct 4, 2016

Liquid Nuclear Waste Convoys: A Threat of the Waters of the Great Lakes – Media Conference, Queen's Park, Toronto, Oct 3 2016. Complete press package at http://ccnr.org/GLWQA_pack.pdf. Dr. Gordon Edwards, President of the Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility; Janet McNeill, Durham Nuclear Awareness; Christine Elwell, Sierra Club of Canada Foundation; introduced by Angela Bischoff, Ontario Clean Air Alliance. Watch the 24 minute 30 second-long video recording on YouTube!

In addition to a postponement, from September till February, in the proposed, high-risk truck shipment campaign, a coalition of environmental groups has also written to U.S. President Obama and Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau, demanding an Environmental Impact Statement be carried out. The coalition also wrote to the binational Great Lakes Executive Committee, demanding required notification under the 2012 Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement.

More.

Nuclear-safety agency not adequately inspecting power plants, watchdog says

As reported by Gloria Galloway in an article entitled "Nuclear-safety agency not adequately inspecting power plants, watchdog says" appearing in The Globe and Mail:

The federal agency charged with ensuring the safety of Canada’s nuclear power plants is unable to prove that it is inspecting those facilities often or thoroughly enough or that it has the number of staff required to do the job, says a new report by the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development.

The audit released by the commissioner, Julie Gelfand, on Tuesday as part of her fall report calls into question whether the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC), which is often accused by environmentalists of being too close to the industry it was established to monitor, is providing proper oversight of the country’s nuclear reactors. [Read the entire article here.]

Commemorating the Fermi 1 meltdown, 50 years later

John G. Fuller's iconic 1975 book "We Almost Lost Detroit" helped open many eyes to the dangers of nuclear powerNext Wednesday, Beyond Nuclear is joining with grassroots environmental allies in southeast Michigan to mark the 50th anniversary of the Oct. 5, 1966 partial meltdown of the infamous Fermi Unit 1 plutonium breeder reactor located on the shore of Lake Erie.

The Fermi nuclear power plant is located just eight miles from Amherstburg, Ontario across the Canadian border.

In the form of our "Freeze Our Fukushimas" and "Got KI?" campaigns, the lessons that should have been learned from this close call with catastrophe, that endangered the Great Lakes, and countless numbers of people downwind and downstream, will be applied to resisting ongoing operations at Fermi 2 (a Fukushima Daiichi twin design), as well as seeking to block the proposed new Fermi 3 reactor.  More