There are two nuclear plants – the Pickering and Darlington Nuclear Power Stations – in the Greater Toronto Area. What have we learned from the Fukushima and Chernobyl disasters? The Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) held a two-part public hearing on the application by Ontario Power Generation Inc. (OPG) to renew, for a period of 13 years, its power reactor operating licence for the Darlington Nuclear Generating Station (NGS) located in the Municipality of Clarington, Ontario, in November 2015.
Dr. Alexander Belyakov, shared his expertise on nuclear safety in this matter. His information was useful to the Commission. Many topics of his research had been widely discussed. A PowerPoint Presentation (Alexander Belyakov Nuclear Safety Hearings Nov 3) and a transcript of the hearings provide some important insides.
Dr. Michael Binder, the President and Chief Executive Officer of the CNSC, asked the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission’s staff:
“I don’t know if you had a chance to read the intervenor paper about food security and the chaos about not clear indication or information as to what is safe to eat, when, you know, right, the day of the accident, where do people find out where and what is okay to eat and what to do and how do you supply food to the affected areas? Where is all of this managed?”
Dr. Patsy Thompson, Director General, Directorate of Environmental and Radiation Protection and Assessment, Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, responded to this question:
“There is guidance available from international organizations like the FAO, the Food and Agriculture Organization, who have established values for — it’s called the Codex Alimentarius, in collaboration with the World Health Organization and it is for levels of contaminants in food that are considered safe.
Recently, the Radiation Safety Standards Committee at the IAEA have done a compilation of various guidance that are available to try to come up with a more uniform way of expressing levels of radioactivity in food that are considered safe so that the guidance is clearer and more uniform. But in terms specifically of what is done in Canada and Ontario, I believe Mr. Sigouin can add information on how decisions are made at the time of an accident.”
Luc Sigouin, Director, Emergency Management Programs at Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, added:
“So following up on Dr. Thompson’s comments, under the provincial and federal plans, it is the Food and Agriculture Agency, so CFIA at the federal level and Ministry of Agriculture at the provincial level that have clearly defined responsibilities and functions under the emergency plans to give advice and guidance and directives related to foodstuffs and agriculture. So that is addressed specifically in the provincial plan as well as in the federal plan, and they are well aligned.”
Dr. Michael Binder, the President and Chief Executive Officer of the CNSC, was not completely satisfied with his staff response and asked again: “I think the intervenor makes the point that on the day of an accident chaos reigns. Where would people know what to do? Where do they go to find this information?”
Dr. Patsy Thompson, Director General, Directorate of Environmental and Radiation Protection and Assessment, Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, added:
“On the CNSC website, for example, one of the things we did post-Fukushima is to have a crisis website where all of this information is available and would be flipped, would be made available at the time of an emergency. Similar information is available from provincial authorities as well.”
Dr. Michael Binder, the President and Chief Executive Officer of the CNSC, responded: “I don’t expect that people in an emergency will look up the but I think the KI, the way they are distributing the KI directly to the home, I understand that in the emergency plan there will be direct distribution about what to do per household, per school, per hospital, and we will be checking in fact whether there are adequate plans in there.”
Dr. Michael Binder, the President and Chief Executive Officer of the CNSC, also asked for a response on evacuation and recovery.
Dr. Patsy Thompson, Director General, Directorate of Environmental and Radiation Protection and Assessment, Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, responded: “Health Canada has updated their guidance for emergency response. They did a public stakeholder consultation on guidance. They are in the stages of finalizing the document. It is in line with the new ICRP, International Commission on Radiation Protection, recommendations for emergency response and preparedness and also with the IAEA framework.
Based on experience from Chernobyl and more recently from Fukushima, it has been quite obvious that evacuation bears its risk and, as some intervenors have mentioned, in Fukushima the deaths from the nuclear accident were related to — about 60 people died from the evacuation, and the trauma essentially of being displaced from one’s home, losing their livelihood, et cetera, has had tremendous psychosocial impacts. It carries a stigma as well regarding being identified as an evacuee.
In Chernobyl, the population who are doing better psychologically and economically are the people who have been allowed to go back and live in their former homes and have essentially been taught to protect themselves and have in place means of measuring radioactivity in the food they eat and in themselves. Those populations have done much better than people who have been permanently evacuated.
Lessons learned from Fukushima is also that in many cases evacuating at very low doses when there is a dose range does not necessarily have a protective impact, a protective effect on people’s health and that in some cases sheltering or evacuation at higher doses would be more appropriate. I believe that is the guidance that is now incorporated into Health Canada’s guidance.”
As we see, there are many things we can do to prepare for a nuclear disaster. Ontario government agrees to a public review of nuclear emergency plans (now expected in 2016).