Stop Shipment of Radioactive Components through Great Lakes

Resolution to Stop Shipment of Radioactive Nuclear Power Steam Generators on the Great Lakes & Dispersal into Consumer Goods

WHEREAS Bruce Power is engaged in a multibillion dollar refurbishment project involving several of the eight Bruce nuclear reactors on Lake Huron;

WHEREAS this refurbishment project involves the removal and replacement of thousands of corroded and radioactively contaminated tubes and pipes in the primary cooling circuits of the affected reactors, which will remain on-site as radioactive wastes;

WHEREAS the refurbishment also involves the removal and replacement of 32 huge radioactive steam generators, each weighing approximately 100 tonnes, each about the size of a school bus, and each containing thousands of radioactively contaminated pipes which carried primary coolant from the core of the nuclear reactor;

WHEREAS the pipes inside the old steam generators are contaminated with radioactive fission products, such as cobalt-60 and cesium-137, with radioactive actinides, such as plutonium, americium, and curium, and with radioactive activation products, such as tritium (hydrogen-3) &carbon-14;

WHEREAS the radioactive contaminants inside the old steam generators include alpha-emitters, beta- emitters and gamma-emitters, some of which have half-lives measured in decades, centuries or even millennia;

WHEREAS the decontamination efforts carried out by Bruce Power have not succeeded in removing all radioactive contamination from these old steam generators;

WHEREAS Bruce Power has signed a contract with the Studsvik company in Sweden to receive and dismantle 32 of these old radioactive steam generators from the Bruce Nuclear Complex, to “recycle” as much of the less radioactive metal as possible for commercial use as scrap metal (up to 90 percent of the total metal in the steam generators), and to return the more radioactive portions to Bruce Power to be stored as radioactive waste;

WHEREAS the recycling of radioactive materials from nuclear reactors as scrap metal for commercial use should not be countenanced or encouraged;

WHEREAS Bruce Power has announced that it intends to ship the old steam generators through the Great Lakes, down the St. Lawrence River, and across the Atlantic Ocean to Studsvik in Sweden;

WHEREAS Studsvik intends to return the most radioactive portions back to Bruce Power, presumably following the same route through the St. Lawrence River and the Great Lakes;

WHEREAS shipping radioactive waste through the Great Lakes is a practice which should be not be allowed because of the potential for long-lived radioactive contamination;

WHEREAS the stigma attached to shipments of radioactive waste materials will affect people's peace of mind and property values along the transportation route, especially if an accident involving those shipments were to occur;

WHEREAS the shipment of old steam generators through the Great Lakes will set a dangerous precedent for other shipments of radioactive waste materials in future;

WHEREAS the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence River system together comprise close to 20% of the world's surface freshwater; and are a source of drinking water for over 40 million people and a $4 billion fisheries; and which support an amazingly diverse and fragile ecosystem;

WHEREAS the Great Lakes are currently compromised by radioactive contaminations through routine emissions and accidental releases at upwards of 50 nuclear sites. This radioactive burden continues to this day and should not be compounded and endorsed by radioactive steam generator shipments.

WHEREAS Bruce Power’s plan for transporting radioactive steam generators to Sweden has never come under public scrutiny, either by citizens and local governments along the trucking and shipping routes, or by provincial, state or national governments - including indigenous and sovereign First Nation and Tribal governments - along the waterways of the proposed Great Lakes/St.-Lawrence route, or by international bodies such as the IJC;

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED
that the organizations and individuals listed:

(1) are opposed in principle to any shipment through the Great Lakes of radioactive waste or radioactively contaminated equipment from the decommissioning, refurbishment, or routine operation of nuclear reactors;

(2) urge the governments of Canada and the U.S.A., as well as indigenous and sovereign First Nation and Tribal governments along the proposed shipment routes, as well as the governments of provinces and states adjacent to the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence River, to insist that the shipment of old nuclear steam generators through the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence River not be allowed to take place;

(3) urge the governments to recognize used nuclear steam generators as radioactive waste; they have always been regarded as radioactive waste and should always be regarded as radioactive waste.

(4) urge that these authorities declare that radioactive wastes and radioactively contaminated equipment from decommissioned or refurbished nuclear reactors, or from routine operation of nuclear reactors, shall not be allowed to be shipped through the Great Lakes or the St. Lawrence River.