Nuclear Police; The AECB Gets Tough

At the invitation of the Hatchet Lake Indian band, members of the Atomic Energy Control Board (AECB) will meet in October at Wollaston Post, a community 30 km east across Wollaston Lake from Cameco’s Rabbit Lake mill, in northern Saskatchewan. This unprecedented 2-day pilgrimage by the AECB to an isolated native community reflects the board’s new determination to tighten its regulatory grip on the nuclear industry. The board will tour the Rabbit Lake facility and consider renewing Cameco’s mining licence, which expire Oct. 31, 1990.

Concerns about uranium mining in the far reaches of Saskatchewan’s northland are not new. Representatives of the Wollaston Post settlement, which includes the 600-member band and 200 other native and Metis residents, have expressed misgivings about uranium mining at Rabbit Lake since mining began there in 1974. Together with other organizations of native citizens, the band has urged federal minister of Energy, Mines and Resources Jake Epp to establish a full public inquiry into the uranium industry and its impact on the ecology, economy and people of the north. The high-volume (2-million-litre) spill of contaminated minewater at Rabbit Lake on Nov. 6-7, 1989 (see separate story) prompted the latest request for a visit by the AECB. As well, native groups do not constitute a lone voice. The Canadian Labour Congress, the United Steelworkers of America and Greenpeace (a high-profile environmental activist group) all support their call for an enquiry.

These groups have discovered a receptive ear within the AECB itself. Board president Rene Levesque tells The Northern Miner Magazine: “We cannot ask Canadians to accept the use of nuclear energy without assuring them that all possible means are being applied to protect them from the hazards associated with this technology.” Dr. Levesque, who spent 28 years as a nuclear physicist and research administrator at the University of Montreal, affirms that “we will take drastic health, safety and environmental protection measures, including shutting down nuclear facilities and prosecuting their operators, to guarantee that they (the operators) fulfil every detail of their licences.”

To help ensure total compliance in the uranium industry, the board’s waste management division initiated prosecutions against Cameco for the Rabbit Lake spill and against Rio Algom for excessive pH (hydrogen ion concentration) discharges at Elliot Lake, Ont. Both suits resulted in convictions on guilty pleas, although critics charge that the fines were nominal. The legal action against Cameco, for corporate negligence in the Rabbit Lake spill, led to a $10,000 fine in December, 1989. Saskatchewan Environment and Public Safety (seps) independently launched a prosecution of Cameco for water pollution caused by this spill. The case was scheduled for trial in late August. Rio Algom was fined $3,000 in April, 1990, for effluent discharges that were exessively alkaline. The spill came from its Quirke Lake operation and occurred between Oct. 22 and 27, 1989. The Cameco and Rio Algom prosecutions were the first ever initiated by the board against mine operators, says Levesque.

On May 18, the board revoked the operating license of Cameco’s Blind River, Ont., uranium refinery, for excessive release of uranium dust during 26 hours on May 16 and 17. This 1-week suspension was the longest one the board had yet meted out to uranium-processing installations. Moreover, the board’s first suit against a utility is targeting Ontario Hydro for mismanagement resulting in radiation overdoses to three workers in an August, 1989, accident at the Pickering Nuclear Generating Station. Unlike the prompt acceptance of guilt by the mining companies on the charges pressed by the board, Ontario Hydro has not entered a plea since its initial court appearances in March.

Headed by Levesque and consisting of four part-time members (a pediatric cancer specialist, an academic geologist, a retired utility engineer and a metallurgist who is president of the National Research Council), the board averages eight meetings annually and is accountable to Parliament through the federal minister of Energy, Mines and Resources. In the period 1976-1985, when the nuclear industry experienced its greatest growth, the board staff increased fourfold, to nearly 270 people, but then shrank slightly because of federal government retrenchment programs. To solicit broad and sustained public scrutiny, Levesque is taking the board on the road and has invited individuals and groups across Canada to attend meetings to share their concerns about nuclear safety and protection from radiation.

Like the upcoming Wollaston Post meeting, Levesque’s first “town-hall” assembly after becoming president in September, 1987, was called to consider the potentially negative environmental effects of a Cameco facility. In April, 1988, board members heard critical questions and views from citizens in Bowmanville, Ont., just before the board’s decision to bar new wastes from Port Granby Waste Management Facility operated by Eldorado Nuclear, one of Cameco’s predecessor firms. This controversial facility, a repository of radioactive waste generated by Cameco’s Port Hope uranium refinery, was relicenced through June, 1990, for care-and-maintenance only.

The Eskay Creeks, Mount Milligans and Louvicourts can only happen as a result of exploration. Consider the long-term negative effects that prolonging the current situation will have on our mineral inventory and on maintaining our position in the global marketplace.

The industry very much appreciates initiatives, such as those taken by the Ontario government, in introducing regional programs to re-stimulate exploration. However, such initiatives are geographically limited in the context of a national industry. Regional initiatives, in the absence of a federal program, ultimately lead to a balkanization of the industry and an unfair competition between have and have-not provinces.

The PDAC has launched a major communication campaign to appeal to all provincial and federal MPs and mayors of mining communities to recognize the serious dilemma that we are currently facing. We know that the federal Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources and all his provincial and territorial colleagues are concerned about the rapidly declining levels of exploration across the country and the economic well-being of our mining-dependent communities. We ask you, as ministers, to exert your considerable collective influence and persuade our federal leaders that to do nothing would be folly.