Waterkeeper's comments for the Nuclear Safety Commission's BWXT relicensing hearing
BWXT Nuclear Energy Canada (BWXT) operates two nuclear processing facilities that supply fuel pellets for the Pickering and Darlington Nuclear Generating Station. One facility is located in Toronto (1025 Lansdowne Avenue) and fabricates the uranium fuel pellets. The other facility is in Peterborough (1160 Monahan Road) and assembles the pellets into fuel metal bundles to power the Stations’ reactors.
As BWXT’s current licence is set to expire later in 2020, the company applied for a new licence term of 10 years. Their relicensing request is currently being considered in a public relicensing hearing before the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC).
Waterkeeper was provided with participant funding to intervene in this hearing to help ensure the CNSC Commissioners render a decision that supports the swimmability, drinkability, and fishability of the Lake Ontario watershed. To do this, Waterkeeper focused on three main issues: the need to lower environmental release limits in the proposed BWXT licence to better protect local waterbodies; the need to improve BWXT’s public information-sharing activities and policies; and concerns over the potential transfer of pelleting operations to Peterborough in the absence of any specific timeline or plans for the move.
The need to better protect local waterbodies by lowering environmental release limits in the proposed BWXT licence
Wastewater from both facilities is received by Lake Ontario in Toronto and the Otonabee River in Peterborough (often but not necessarily always) passing through waste water treatment plants. Waterkeeper expressed concerns that current release levels for both facilities were absurdly high and that while new proposed limits were lower, they needed to be further lowered in order to better protect local watercourses and aquatic biota. Waterkeeper also recommended additional groundwater and stormwater monitoring to determine whether there are legacy contamination issues at either BWXT site that could affect local groundwater, lakes, rivers, or creeks.
The need to improve BWXT’s public information-sharing activities and policies
While BWXT only started managing operations at its two facilities in 2016, its predecessor GE Canada (and later GE-Hitachi Canada) owned and built the facilities and operated them for various purposes for over 100 years. Despite the length of operations in these locations, many locals are unaware of the facilities or what they do. As such, Waterkeeper recommended improvements to public information sharing to better facilitate the public’s right to know about the facilities and their operations. This included a request for real-time public environmental data disclosure, and better public reporting of unplanned events at both facilities.
Concerns over the lack of information concerning the potential future transfer of pelleting operations to Peterborough
In its relicensing request, BWXT requested permission to conduct pelleting activities at the Peterborough facility. This would require significant renovations to the Peterborough facility, changes to environmental monitoring activities in Peterborough, and cooperation with the Peterborough municipality to ensure all liquid discharges could be adequately understood and treated to protect local ground and surface water. However, no details concerning any of these changes or any potential timelines for this move have been provided by BWXT. As such, Waterkeeper cautioned the Commission against permitting the relocation of pelleting activities without further plans and timelines. Waterkeeper also requested this information be made available for public review before any decision on the matter is made.
Click the links below to read Waterkeeper’s submission to the CNSC: