The Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) held a public meeting in Toronto on December 10-11 2013 regarding GE-Hitachi’s Toronto facility. This facility manufactures uranium pellets used for fuel in CANDU nuclear reactors. This meeting arose due to concerns raised by residents in the area and their political representatives, as to the nature of operations of this facility, of which they were essentially unaware, and the hazards such a plant poses in a dense residential area.
However, on the last day, the meeting was cut short, as the CNSC commission walked out.
IICPH delivered both a written submission to the CNSC and delivered an oral presentation at the meeting.
Background of Issue
GE-Hitachi Canada (GEH-C) began its nuclear fuel operations at Toronto (and Peterborough) in 1955. The Toronto facility, which manufactures uranium dioxide (UO2) pellets from UO2 powder received from Cameco’s Port Hope Uranium Conversion Facility, is licensed to produce up to 1,800 tonnes of uranium dioxide pellets per year from natural or depleted uranium dioxide powder. The majority of these pellets are shipped to GEH-C’s Peterborough facility where they are assembled into nuclear fuel bundles for Canadian nuclear reactors. Small quantities of pellets are also shipped to GEH-C’s nuclear fuel plant in Wilmington, North Carolina.
Prior to the pellet plant operations, GE has been operating an industrial facility at this site since 1905, in an area which at that time and for many years was an industrial area, close to a major railway line.
This plant has recently become the focus of public attention, as residents became aware of the nature of its operations, and raised concerns over the lack of transparency and communication as to the nature of the operations, its emissions of uranium, and the potential adverse health effects, especially on children, and the transportation of uranium dioxide powder and pellets through their community. Public concerns were instrumental in soil sampling tests that carried out in June 2013 by GEH- Toronto (and CNSC) around the facility’s perimeter and by the Ontario Ministry of Environment (MOE), in public areas surrounding the facility.
Uranium poses a hazard through various routes of exposure: inhalation, ingestion (water, soil and vegetation) and dermal contact. It is both radiologically and chemically toxic. If inhaled or ingested, its radioactivity poses increased risks of lung cancer and bone cancer. It can also cause damage to internal organs, notably the kidneys. It may also affect reproduction and the developing foetus, and increase the risk of leukemia and soft tissue cancers. Cancer is the predominant endpoint. Children, the fertilized ovum, the foetus, newborn, women (especially if pregnant), the immune compromised, and the elderly are especially vulnerable to the health effects of uranium and its progeny.
The processing of uranium by this facility results in releases of fine uranium dust into the air, which will eventually be deposited on soil, water and vegetation, both locally and long-range. This uranium dust is easily inhalable and readily transported to vulnerable tissues of the body.
For more information about the public meeting (and IICPH’s involvement), see the media coverage:
NOW Magazine (January 16-23 2014)
Latest chapter in nuke watchdog’s fight with west-end residents over GE uranium plant ends in a meltdown
Vice News (December 2013)
Activists Are Lashing Out at the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission
To access IICPH’s oral presentation pertaining to the GE-Hitachi facility in Toronto delivered December 12, 2013 click IICPH Oral Presentation
For IICPH’s full submission to the CNSC on the CNSC Staff Report on the Performance of Canadian Uranium Fuel Cycle and Processing Facilities click IICPH Full Submission