Natural Resources Committee on March 8th, 2011

[Paule Brunelle, Bloc, Trois-Rivières, QC]

One issue troubles me. Your company has stated publicly that if it were required to conduct an environmental assessment—which has been a possibility—it would abandon the project. Why? Would this entail additional costs for you? Have you lobbied the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission against an environmental assessment?

[Duncan Hawthorne]

No, I don't know if anyone in our company said we wouldn't do it if it wasn't an EA. That's not the point. The point is that a regulatory certainty is a key part of doing anything in my business. The regulations have been assessed. There is nothing unless there actually is an environmental assessment trigger.

Separate from the whole issue about public consultation and concern, my point is that the regulations dictate when an EA is required and when not, and this particular event has been tested and there is no environmental assessment trigger.

[Paule Brunelle, Bloc, Trois-Rivières, QC]

I have a brief question for Mr. Lamarre. Please tell us exactly why you are here. Is SNC-Lavalin involved in the refurbishing or decommissioning of plants?

[Patrick Lamarre, President, SNC-Lavalin Nuclear Inc., Bruce Power]

Our role in the Bruce Power plant refurbishment process was to replace and install new boilers. SNC-Lavalin’s remit was to prepare for the removal of the boilers. The crane in the second photograph on page 3 or 4 is one we used in the process.

We are also here to tell you that the safety of our employees was a priority throughout the process. We monitored employee exposure several times a day to ensure that there was no contamination.

We were also responsible for ensuring that all the generator’s openings were properly welded shut. We contracted Kinectrics, which does work on several nuclear plants throughout the World, to check for possible leaks from the covers installed on the boilers.

[The Chair, Conservative, Leon Benoit]

Merci, Madame Brunelle.

Mr. Cullen, for up to seven minutes. Go ahead, please.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

I would like to check one thing with you. The legislation currently requires only one official to sign off on the shipment of this type of nuclear waste, does it not? The current Act does not require public consultations.

[Duncan Hawthorne]

That's correct, for this level of activity.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

This seems a little strange, especially in the case of a regulatory body like the CNSC. Public consultations where there is no opportunity for a project to be turned down are not really consultations at all. The public normally expects the result of consultations to be either the approval or dismissal of a project.

These consultations were not really genuine consultation at all. The public was simply informed that the project had been approved. That is the reality.

[Duncan Hawthorne]

That's consistent with how the regulations are written. If that's an interpretation of the regulation, you're correct. There are many things that are delegated to the commission staff by virtue of the regulations that exist in Canada. If you ask me why that's so, there are many routine activities that take place time after time, and it would be just unworkable to have anything other than that. I'm not undermining your point; I'm just noting that this is how the regulations are created.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Nor am I undermining that you folks have the permits under the law as they are considered.

I think some Canadians come to these meetings with a different set of expectations: if they are being consulted or they're being informed, and those are two different things. Consultation means “I may change my mind”, or “I'll change the plan”, but the law doesn't require that right now. This committee has to make some recommendations to government about how the regulation of your industry goes ahead, because as you said, there are more generators coming; there are more possibilities of transport.

About the environmental choice, from my understanding of the folks in Sweden, this is contaminated metal, right, that's being transported? The most contaminated pieces are sent back to Canada, the waste, but the metal is then reprocessed with as much as ten times the amount of steel; it's a form of dilution of the contamination. Is that right? Is that what the standard is?

[Duncan Hawthorne]

I wish I could draw you a picture. But the reality is, if you can imagine your kettle at home, inside you have a heating element. For the purpose of clarity, let's say that the heating element represents the steel tubes that are inside a boiler. What they effectively do is take the steam tubes and assume them to be contaminated. The rest of the kettle in my example would be determined to be scrap metal. It would have to pass a test that it is in fact scrap metal, in which case there is no radioactive element to it, and it would be free released.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Let me stop you there.

The metal in the casing is not contaminated at all?

[Duncan Hawthorne]

Correct.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

It's not?

[Duncan Hawthorne]

That's the intention of this process—

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

No. At the end of the day it's not contaminated, but at the beginning it is.

[Duncan Hawthorne]

No. We've confirmed that the outer shell is clean. This process will remove anything that may be on the outer shell with the intention of deeming that to be scrap metal.

That scrap metal for free release, not containing radioactivity, still has to be then melted down with other things in a ratio. So you're absolutely right about that, but the steel tubes themselves, the internal part, are very likely not to be dealt with other than to be reduced in volume and returned back to us. That's the whole issue here.

It's not simple—I said that from the beginning. I've tried my best to articulate that in this booklet, but really that is the difference. People expect that radioactive material is going to enter the scrap metal market, and that's not what—

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

No, that's not my suggestion, and it seems to me that we'll need to get these folks in from Sweden to talk about it, because they're the experts.

[Duncan Hawthorne]

Of course they did appear before the commission, as Studsvik were themselves challenged.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

What's interesting is that the same company is trying to black out the names of the groups that are going to receive this metal at the end of the process. That's a battle going on in Sweden right now. So if it's such a great environmental or a clean choice, it's strange that the folks who are eventually going to reprocess this are trying to deny—but that's not for you; that's for them.

There is something strange that Mr. Binder, the regulator, said at the end of his testimony. You said we need a strong regulator. That's true. For your industry, you need a strong regulator. You said you also understand the concerns of people who are expressing worry. You can understand their being concerned. You understand the mayors and the six senators from the U.S. who have written with concerns.

The regulator was just in front of this committee and accused those same people, those six U.S. senators and the 300 mayors, of being anti-nuke. He said that the only people who are opposed to this have an agenda that is anti-nuke. I'll go through the blues and the testimony on this.

It seems strange to me that this would come out of the mouth of the watchdog, while the person who is actually dealing with the public and doesn't actually have that responsibility—it's the watchdog who does, primarily; that's their job. You say you understand the concerns of people, whereas the watchdog says that anybody opposed to this is expressing unfounded concerns and is scaremongering, fearmongering, in his words.

[Duncan Hawthorne]

I'm not going to try to speak for the doctor—

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

It's a dangerous thing to do.

[Duncan Hawthorne]

—one, because he has spoken; two, because he's my regulator—

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Good choice.

[Duncan Hawthorne]

—but I'll speak for myself when I say that my characterization of things is a simple one. And you'll hear some of this. This committee will hear from mayors in our community. One, they better understand what we do, and two, they know us as parts of their community. That obviously has an impact.

The one thing I will say is that there is no doubt a significant amount of the concern expressed by well-intentioned and entirely appropriate elected officials and members of the public has been fueled by misinformation sent to them by anti-nuclear groups.