Citizens’ Groups Protest Use
of Weapons-Grade Uranium
at Chalk River Isotope Facility

 

Maple Reactors and Weapons-Grade Uranium

INDEX

• Press Release, Concerned Citizens of Renfrew County and Area
• AECB Submission, Concerned Citizens of Renfrew County and Area
• AECB Submission, Nuclear Awareness Project
• AECB Submission, Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility
• Appendix: excerpts from decision of Nuclear Regulatory Commission
• Use of weapons-grade uranium in reactor gets go-ahead from AECB.

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P R E S S   R E L E A S E

 

Concerned Citizens of Renfrew County and Area

 

P.O. Box 981, Pembroke, Ontario K8A 7M5
Tel. : (613) 735-4876 Fax: (613) 735-6444

 

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For immediate release

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Pembroke, Ontario,
August 12, 1999

Concerned Citizens of Renfrew County and Area (CCRC) wants the Atomic Energy Control Board (AECB) not to grant a licence to a controversial nuclear project consisting of two nuclear reactors and a medical isotope processing facility being built at the Chalk River Laboratories of Atomic Energy of Canada, Limited (AECL).

The Board meets on Thursday, August 12, in Ottawa, to consider this and other matters. CCRC wants the AECB to carefully and thoroughly examine the environmental consequences of using weapons-grade uranium in the civilian project before addressing the licensing issue.

The $150 million complex, financed by Canadian taxpayers, will be owned by a private company, MDS/Nordion, and operated by AECL. The new facilities are designed to use 93.3 percent enriched uranium   [ 93.3 percent uranium-235 ]   which would have to be provided by a U.S. nuclear weapons facility.

93.3 percent enriched uranium is also known as “weapons-grade uranium”. It is identical in composition to the uranium explosive in the Hiroshima bomb. Technically, it is described as “highly enriched uranium” or “HEU”. On June 16 the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) held an extraordinary hearing to determine if export of 93.3 percent enriched uranium for the Chalk River project violates a legal requirement in the U.S. Atomic Energy Act to phase-out commercial use of highly enriched uranium (HEU). This requirement, known as the Schumer Amendment, is intended to reduce accessibility to weapons-usable nuclear materials as a way of inhibiting the proliferation of nuclear weapons worldwide. As a result of the American hearing, the Canadian project proponents must file annual reports, accessible to the public, on progress in converting the Canadian isotope-production facilities so they can use use low-enriched uranium   [ LEU, which is not weapons-usable ]   instead of HEU.

CCRC maintains Canadian authorities are ignoring the important issue of conversion away from the use of HEU. Furthermore, the group wants more consideration given to:

• the justification for using weapons-grade materials when alternative processes may be feasible;
• the added security and resources required to transport, handle and store weapons-grade material safely;
• emergency planning and reactor safety implications of the use of weapons-grade material (e.g. potential for criticality accidents);
• a dangerous international precedent that may ne used to justify commercial use of weapons-grade material in other countries;
• long-term implications of storing spent materials that still contain weapons-usable uranium; and
• project redesign to use low-enriched uranium prior to reactor start-up.

The group has written Dr. Agnes Bishop, AECB President, asking that an operating license for the project not be granted at the August 12 Board meeting.

Three other public interest groups, Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility, Campaign for Nuclear Phaseout, and the Nuclear Awareness Project have also written to the AECB urging a delay in licensing, citing a variety of concerns including unresolved safety issues, waste disposal issues and the need to convert to the use of LEU.

CCRC has requested that a comprehensive environmental assessment be carried out to address its concerns.

– 30 –

For more information contact:

Gordon Edwards	514-489-5118	Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility
Kristen Ostling	613-789-3634	Campaign for Nuclear Phaseout
Ole Hendrickson	613-735-4876	Concerned Citizens of Renfrew County
Irene Kock	905-852-3044	Nuclear Awareness Project

 

Submissions to the AECB on
the Licensing of the MMIR Project
(MDS/Nordion Medical Isotope Reactor Project)

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1. SUBMISSION FROM CCRC

 

Concerned Citizens of Renfrew County and Area
P.O. Box 981, Pembroke, Ontario K8A 7M5
Tel. : (613) 735-4876   Fax: (613) 735-6444

July 22, 1999

 

Dr. Agnes Bishop
Atomic Energy Control Board (AECB)
280 Slater Street, P.O. Box 1046
Ottawa, ON K1P 5S9
fax: 613-995-5086

Dear Dr. Bishop:

Re: Operating license for MAPLE 1 and 2 Reactors, and New Processing Facility, MDS/Nordion Medical Isotope Reactor (MMIR) Project, Chalk River Laboratories (CRL), Atomic Energy of Canada Limited (AECL)

We would like to outline a number of reasons to delay the issuance of an operating license for the MMIR project, which will be considered at the August 12, 1999 Board meeting.

Board Management Documents 99-70 and 99-71, the most recent publicly available documents concerning this project, indicate that applicant’s performance is fully acceptable on only 4 of 18 topics discussed by AECB staff. This fact alone indicates that the application is not ready for Board consideration.

The final paragraph in the Executive Summary of BMD 99-71 states,

In order to maintain the project’s schedule, AECL has requested that the operating license be approved by August 1999.

Such comments from Board staff are not appropriate, and betray a continuing lack of independence between the AECB and the nuclear industry. The AECB is accountable to the public and its elected officials. An applicant’s project schedule should not dictate the timing of licensing decisions.

As a public interest group, we do our best to ensure that human health, safety, and environmental considerations are fully addressed in matters coming before the Board. If an operating license for the MMIR Project is approved on August 12, 1999, we will have no further opportunities to review the applicant’s performance and to ensure that public concerns are being adequately addressed.

Here are some topics of major public interest in BMD 99-70 for which resolution is needed prior to licensing:

• Section 3.3.4 indicates that breaks in the primary cooling system (PCS) could cause fuel failure, and that the applicant’s estimates of releases of radioactivity in the event of fuel failure “are not demonstratively conservative”.
• Section 3.3.5 indicates similar problems with AECL’s analysis of a “PCS pump seizure event”. Public interest dictates that there be complete and honest estimates of amounts of radiation that may be released from the new facilities in the event of an accident.
• AECL failed to comply with construction license conditions regarding installation of the drain system for the new reactors (Section 2.1). What assurance does the public have that liquid effluents from the new reactors will be properly treated, as opposed to creating uncontrolled plumes of radioactive water contaminating the Ottawa River (as is the case for several older facilities at CRL)?
• The “Operating Limits and Conditions” document as yet specifies no limits on air and liquid effluents from the new reactors (Section 3.9.2) and AECL “has not yet provided a final estimate of the total radiological releases from the facilities” (Section 3.9.3).
• Common sense suggests that an Operations Quality Assurance program be fully documented and in place before operations commence. We are baffled by the statement in Section 3.8.5 that “If the program is not fully implemented prior to fuel loading, we would require a justification for why the non implemented portion is not needed.”
• Section 3.6.2.3 indicates that AECL has not demonstrated that proposed staffing levels will be acceptable for emergency conditions. Furthermore, AECL is proposing to staff the new MAPLE 1 reactor at reduced levels during the commissioning phase. The commissioning phase is a critical time, given that this is a new reactor type with which AECL does not have a history of operating experience. There should be a full complement of staff, sufficient to address emergency conditions, at all times when fuel is loaded in the new reactors.
• With regard to emergency planning, we strongly agree with the conclusion in Section 6 that AECL must provide evidence that “all the necessary arrangements are in place and that interfaces with the rest of the CRL site have been and will continue to be properly managed”. This must be confirmed prior to license approval. We note that “To date, AECL has provided no information relating to emergency preparedness for the new facilities” (Section 3.11).
• We continue to take issue with the assertion in Section 3.11 that the conclusion of the February 1997 environmental screening report remains valid (“that the proposed project is not likely to cause significant adverse environmental effects”). We reject the assertion in Section 5 that the screening addressed the operational phases of the project. Our previous submission (on the initial consideration of the operating license) described the deficiencies of the environmental screening in considerable detail.

These deficiencies have been most problematic for issues regarding the proposed use of highly-enriched uranium (HEU). As you may be aware, concerns have been raised that the export of HEU from the U.S. for the MMIR project violates the U.S. Atomic Energy Act. The Schumer Amendment, added to the Atomic Energy Act by the Energy Policy Act of 1992, imposes restrictions on U.S. exports of HEU. HEU targets can be exported only if:

• there is no alternative target that can be used;
• the proposed recipient has demonstrated that whenever an alternative target can be used, it will use that alternative in lieu of highly enriched uranium; and
• the United States Government is actively developing an alternative target.

On June 16, 1999, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) held an extraordinary hearing on the application by MDS/Nordion and AECL to import 130 Kg of 93.3 percent enriched uranium for the MMIR project. As a result of that hearing, conditions (Appendix I) were imposed on the export license that require the applicants to submit yearly status reports to the NRC, detailing Canadian cooperation in developing LEU targets for the MAPLE reactors. These status reports will be public.

This action makes it all the more important that alternatives to the use of HEU in the MMIR project be publicly examined prior to licensing of its operations. The AECB, on behalf of Canada, should demonstrate a good faith effort to address nuclear proliferation concerns by taking effective actions within its competence to remove weapons-grade uranium from global commerce.

The understanding of the NRC is “that AECL will cooperate fully with ANL [Argonne National Laboratory, developer of the LEU target for the MAPLE reactors] to complete a feasibility study as soon as possible.” The following passage from the NRC decision stresses the importance of quick action in this regard:

In light of these commitments, the Commission is encouraged that AECL may have a feasibility study in hand in time to consider whether minor modifications could be made prior to the MAPLE reactors and their processing facility coming on line that would permit the use of LEU targets, or take other reasonable measures that would at least preserve the opportunity to move to LEU targets in the future.

To ensure compliance with the Schumer Amendment, the Commission expects applicants to pursue all reasonable measures that would not cause ”a large percentage increase in the total cost of operating the reactor.”

We strongly urge the AECB to make the completion of this joint feasibility study a prerequisite for the issuance of an operating license for the MMIR project. We also urge the AECB to make annual public reports on progress in making the transition to use of LEU targets a license condition, parallel to that in the NRC decision.

These actions will not only serve the public interest, but will benefit the project proponents by helping ensure a continuing supply of U-235 targets for their manufacturing process.

Yours truly,

Ole Hendrickson, Researcher,
Concerned Citizens of Renfrew County and Area

 

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2. SUBMISSION FROM NAP

 

Nuclear Awareness Project
P.O. Box 104, Uxbridge,
Ontario, Canada, L9P 1M6

July 22, 1999

 

It is apparent from a review of the Current AECB Board Member Documents relating to initial consideration of the licensing for the MAPLE reactors (99-70 series), that AECL is not ready to operate the MAPLE reactors. There were significant outstanding problems as of only 3 months ago. However, the time pressure surrounding this project has been extraordinary, and Nuclear Awareness Project is very concerned that the licensing process is bending too much to accommodate the push to start up the reactors.

Is it no longer true that the NRU is expected to run until 2005? Why the rush? [The NRU currently produces the same isotopes that the new reactors are designed to produce.] All ‘conditionally acceptable’ matters must be resolved prior to start-up of the reactors. [Board staff has identified a number of ‘conditionally acceptable’ issues related to the new reactors.]

Nuclear Awareness Project endorses the submission from Concerned Citizens of Renfrew County and Area (BMD 99-70.2) which formally requests that the Board undertake a ‘comprehensive study’ of the project under the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act. As was noted in our earlier submission on the ‘screening’ level review for this project, there are many compelling reasons to undertake a more thorough environmental assessment.

The following outstanding matters noted in BMD 99-70 are of particular concern to Nuclear Awareness Project:

• lack of an adequate corporate quality assurance program
• specific allowances for the release of radioactivity from the reactor building (as stated in our earlier submission, the reactors should be surrounded by proper containment structures [to prevent such releases] and should include pollution control equipment to prevent routine pollution)
• the splintered approach to licensing, as seen in the case of the iodine-125 production facility issues
• outstanding questions about the probability of severe reactor accidents, including:
  • ‘common cause failure’ analysis such as fire hazards,
  • analysis of loss of coolant accidents, coolant pump seizures and fuel channel blockage accidents,
  • uncertainty about the effectiveness of the reactor emergency shutdown system, and
  • uncertainty about the validity of computer models used by AECL to justify the reactor hazard analysis (these matters should have been resolved at the design stage, prior to approval for construction of the reactors)

   

• incomplete analysis of the proposed ‘operational limits and conditions’ for the reactors
• outstanding staffing and training issues and the conditionally acceptable ‘human factors’ program
• conditionally acceptable plans for control and management of nuclear materials to guarantee that no diversion of weapons- useable materials takes place, and to ensure worker safety, as well as environmental and public health protection
• incomplete decommissioning documentation and no arrangements for guaranteed funding for future liabilities associated with decommissioning and long term nuclear waste management

High Enriched Uranium Targets – The Use of Bomb-Grade Uranium

The recent request by AECL and MDS to import high enriched uranium targets from the United States for use in the MAPLE reactors resulted in an important decision by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The approval to import these targets is conditional on proof of efforts to convert the reactors to use low enriched uranium targets instead.

At issue is compliance with a U.S. law — the 1992 Schumer Amendment to the Energy Policy Act — which restricts the export of high grade uranium and plutonium due to concerns about potential nuclear weapons proliferation. Ideally, conversion of the MAPLE reactors to use low enriched uranium should be undertaken prior to start-up of the reactors. Since AECL has scheduled closure of the NRU in 2005, this should provide sufficient time for the conversion.

The AECB should ensure that a licence condition clearly sets out a requirement for this conversion [to take place] prior to start-up. This matter is not discussed in BMD 99-70. It took an intervention by a U.S. non-governmental organization, the Nuclear Control Institute, at a U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission hearing, before AECL and MDS Nordion even agreed to commit to converting the MAPLE reactors to low enriched uranium.

The AECB should not have provided design approval for use of high enriched uranium in the first place, given the nuclear weapons proliferation risks involved with commerce in high enriched uranium. The import of high enriched uranium into Canada sets a dangerous precedent for global trade in nuclear bomb-grade materials, including uranium and plutonium.

Irene Kock
Nuclear Awareness Project
P.O. Box 104, Uxbridge, Ontario, Canada, L9P 1M6

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3. SUBMISSION FROM CCNR

 

Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility
PO Box 236, Succursale “Snowdon”,
Montreal, Quebec, H3X 3T4
Tel. and Fax : (514) 489-5118

July 22, 1999

Dr. Agnes Bishop, President
Atomic Energy Control Board (AECB)
280 Slater Street, P.O. Box 1046
Ottawa, ON K1P 5S9

fax: 613-995-5086 e-mail: ellyson.c@atomcon.gc.ca

Dear Dr. Bishop:

The Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility is opposed to the granting of a operating licence to the MDS/Nordion Medical Isotope Project.

Questions relating to the transfer and safeguarding of weapons-grade materials such as highly-enriched uranium and separated plutonium is, in our view, of the highest importance in matters of regulation affecting the nuclear industry. Historically, the very creation of the Atomic Energy Control Board by the Government of Canada and granting of exclusive jurisdiction over nuclear matters to AECB was largely motivated by such considerations.

To treat such matters lightly is hardly in the best interests of Canada or the world community. It would therefore be unacceptable to CCNR for AECB to grant a licence to the MDS/Nordion Medical Isotope Project without a full Comprehensive Study under the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act –one that would focus not only on the usual safety and environmental considerations of reactor operations, but also on:

• the justification for using weapons-grade material as a target material when alternative targets may well be feasible,
• the added security and resources required to safely transport, handle and store weapons-grade material (e.g. potential for diversion or theft),
• the added security and reactor safety implications of the use of weapons-grade material (e.g. potential for criticality accidents),
• the possible international implications of such use (e.g. setting a precedent which other countries may want to use to justify their own actions),
• the long-term implications of storing spent fuel which still contains weapons-usable uranium,
• the potential to avoid such use of weapons-grade material by continuing to operate NRU as a production reactor while re-designing the MAPLE to accept LEU targets prior to MAPLE start-up.

CCNR is convinced that AECB must greatly expand its ability and its determination to examine licensing applications with non-proliferation concerns uppermost. In the past this has been largely academic, since shipments of weapons-grade material in Canada were not as routinely planned or as widely known. Neither Canada nor the nuclear industry can afford to be lax on this issue, since any breach of security could have the most far-reaching and grave consequences.

The easiest and most satisfactory way to ensure that non-proliferation objective are met is to avoid the use of weapons-grade material in the first place. Since AECL is required by American law to work toward the objective of eventually eliminating the use of HEU in MAPLE reactors, some effort on the part of AECB to determine whether or not the use of HEU could be completely bypassed would seem to be in order, in the interests of Canada and Canadians.

Hoping that AECB will not rush to grant a licence to this facility until the matters touched on here have been addressed in a thorough manner, I am

Yours very truly,

Gordon Edwards, Ph.D., President,
Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility
PO Box 236, Station Snowdon, Montreal, H3X 3T4

 

 

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