Nuclear Wastes – when “low”is not low enough

Story by Brennain Lloyd/Special to BayToday.ca

With a focus on low and intermediate level radioactive wastes, some interesting themes emerged during Day Two of the Canadian Nuclear Society’s international conference in Toronto on nuclear wastes and the decommissioning of nuclear facilities in Canada. Each had their own potential implications for Canadians in general and some for northern Ontario more particularly.

Speakers in the morning plenary – representing various nuclear industries and regulators – cast the initiatives under discussion in a positive light, using terms like “waste minimization” and “volume reduction”. In plainer language, what was being discussed was the incineration, export and potential dispersal of low level radioactive wastes into the environment or in some cases potentially even into consumer goods.

In what appears to be part of an emerging trend, there were numerous examples discussed of exporting radioactive wastes across international borders for “disposal”. New Brunswick Power was initially coy about their plans to ship an unexpectedly large volume of refurbishment wastes to an “off-site third party”, but with prompting they shared the detail that their intention is to ship the wastes to a private company in Tennessee for “disposal and volume reduction”. The residuals – radioactive incinerator ash - will be sent back to Canada. But theirs is not the only cross-border trafficking: Cameco plans to send Depleted Uranium to a "recycler" in the U.S., as well as shipping spent lab solvents south for incineration of at a U.S. facility, and contaminated soils to the U.S. for disposal.

Much of this trafficking in nuclear waste product flys well under the radar for the general public or even potentially affected communities. While there was a thunderous public response to plans last year by Bruce Power to ship radioactive steam generators to Sweden for recycling there is no certainty that the public will even be aware that these transfers are taking place, or that radioactive wastes are being incinerated.

Most residents along the north shore of Lake Huron are not aware that uranium-contaminated operational wastes are Cameco’s uranium refinery in Blind River are incinerated there. Even fewer know that in recent years Cameco has gained the approval of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission to begin shipping wastes from the uranium conversion in Port Hope to Blind River for incineration, and to add uranium contaminated oil to the wastes that are incinerated. Cameco disclosed their intention to add to Blind River’s burden, with plans to ship both historic and ongoing wastes from their nuclear fuel fabrication facilities in southern Ontario to their refinery in Blind River.

The burden is on the environment. Air emissions are laced with small amounts of uranium, which eventually settles, increasing concentrations of the radionuclide in soil and even vegetation.

Presenting on behalf of Cameco, Karen Chovan summarized one of the key challenges for the uranium giant as one of "educating and gaining buy-in from potential receivers of free-released materials".

Free release materials are radioactive materials below a certain level of radioactivity. Part of the controversy over Bruce Power’s intended shipment of radioactive steam generators to Sweden is the possibility that radioactive metal could eventually make its way into consumer products via the “free release” of materials that have low levels of radioactivity.

While Natural Resources Canada – the federal department responsible for the regulation of the nuclear industry and nuclear products – acknowledged during the morning sessions that Canada has “no strategic plan for low and intermediate level (radioactive) wastes”, presentations in the afternoon suggest that while there may be no plan in place, a partial strategy may be emerging, at least on the part of the private sector.

Perhaps filling a policy void, the Canadian Standards Association has stepped up to the plate to champion the development of a regulatory guideline for “the Exemption or Clearance from Regulatory Control of Materials that Contain, or Potentially Contain, Nuclear Substances”. In summary, a roadmap for waste owners wanting to “clear” materials of their identification as a radioactive waste, in order to be able to dispose of it through less tightly controlled methods than would be the case if it still carried the label of nuclear waste.


Released earlier this year and available from the Canadian Standards Association (CSA) but only for a substantial fee, the guideline was developed by a technical advisory committee without public representation, and the public review period included no notice except for a posting on the CSA web site. Now approved by the CSA, this voluntary standard has become the reference point for government and industry. While there are many benefits to minimizing the volume of nuclear wastes by keeping non-radioactive wastes well segregated and so avoid mis-categorization or cross contamination of wastes that truly are non-nuclear, the notion of blending and mixing wastes to bring radioactive wastes below a permissible limit is of a darker character.