Groups seek to stop nuclear shipments
Plan to move radioactive liquid from Chalk River to South Carolina
Activists are mobilizing on both sides of the CanadaU.S. border to block a proposed plan to secretly transport truckloads of intensely radioactive liquid waste through eastern Ontario to South Carolina.
“Security is important, but we need to have a good discussion about whether or not this is a good idea,” said John Bennett, executive director of the Sierra Club of Canada.
“Over the years, the nuclear industry has not always been correct or totally honest about what the options are. There needs to be some outside scrutiny of this.”
‘Over the years, the nuclear industry has not always been correct or totally honest about what the options are.’
JOHN BENNETT Executive director Sierra Club of Canada
Pending final federal approvals, about 23,000 litres of nitric acid solution containing highly enriched uranium is to be transported under armed guard from Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd.’s Chalk River nuclear laboratories to the U.S. government’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina for reprocessing. A U.S. official says the Crown corporation has agreed to pay the $60 million cost.
The proposed plan follows Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s commitment at the 2012 Nuclear Security Summit in Seoul to return additional U.S.-origin HEU inventories to the U.S. to lessen the risk of nuclear terrorism.
The liquid is a lingering byproduct from Chalk River’s life-saving medical isotope production, which irradiates fresh HEU from the U.S. inside the NRU research reactor.
The potentially volatile solution contains an estimated 161 kilograms of HEU and has been stored for about a decade inside a fortified vessel known as the Fissile Solution Storage Tank. But the tank is full and concerns about minor internal leaks, nuclear proliferation and nuclear terrorism have convinced the government to repatriate the toxic stew to the U.S.
About 50 large, steel-encased, lead-shielded casks, each weighing about 23,000 kilograms and containing a few hundred litres of the solution, would move in heavily armed convoys along the Hwy. 17 portion of the TransCanada Highway through Renfrew County to one of seven Canada-U.S. border crossings in Ontario and Quebec, according to documents filed with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
It is believed to be first attempt in Canada or the U.S. to move liquid HEU along public roads.
The chief concern is not that the armed shipments of weapons-grade uranium could be hijacked, because each is to be relatively small, and removing HEU from the solution is a highly sophisticated process.
The real fear is a spill caused by an accident or sabotage.
Canadian authorities say they are prohibited by law from acknowledging the mission, which could begin as early as this summer. As such, they say, public hearings to discuss and debate environmental and safety concerns are out of the question.
The Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission has yet to receive an application to transport HEU in liquid form to the U.S.
Meanwhile a swelling chorus of opposition demands that senior Canadian and U.S. officials reconsider before the plan wins final licensing approvals from regulators in either country.
“Moving HEU nearly 2,000 kilometres from Chalk River to the Savannah River Site in the United States puts people and the environment at an unacceptable risk,” Maude Barlow, national chairperson of the Council of Canadians, said in a statement.
“The shipment of HEU would need to pass through eastern Ontario, cross international waters, enter numerous indigenous territories and cut through communities in six U.S. states.”