Tritium levels dangerously high at Pembroke factory: report

The Ottawa Citizen
June 13, 2007
Lee Greenberg

TORONTO - Levels of a radioactive product used at a Pembroke facility to make glow-in-the-dark products are "eye-poppingly big," according to a British researcher who yesterday said nearby residents and workers at the SRB Technologies (Canada) Ltd. plant could be contaminated from the radiation.

"They're Bananasville. Really, really high," said Ian Fairlie, who authored a report released yesterday by Greenpeace. "Initially when I saw these figures, I didn't believe them, they were so high."

The report examined risks posed by tritium, a radioactive substance issued from the province's 21 nuclear reactors. Mr. Fairlie, an independent consultant who has advised the World Health Organization and the European Union on radiation, says Canadian standards for exposure to tritium are about 10 times more lax than those of the United States and about 100 times more lax than those in Europe.

The tritium levels around the Pickering and Bruce nuclear facilities -- which have eight reactors -- and Darlington, where there are four, are so high that he recommends young children and pregnant women move if they live within 10 kilometres.

Those within five kilometres shouldn't eat food grown in their gardens, the report advised.

Mr. Fairlie said he was astonished at the tritium emissions levels at the Pembroke plant in 1997, 1998 and 2000 -- which approach "the level of a big nuclear power station."

Those levels remained extremely high until 2002 and have decreased steadily since then. Mr. Fairlie nevertheless says the risk of contamination, especially for workers and their families, remains real.

"In practical terms, these are humongous amounts of tritium," Mr. Fairlie said in a telephone interview. "I would say that people living within a couple kilometres of the plant should be measured for certain levels of tritium."

Tritium contamination can lead to birth defects and cancer -- especially cancer of the blood, such as leukemia, he said.

A spokeswoman for the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, however, disputed the suggestion that workers and residents who live nearby the plant are exposed to dangerous levels of tritium.

"All workers in Canadian nuclear plants, as in the SRB plant, are monitored for exposure to radiation, including tritium, and this is tracked and the doses are sent to a national dose registry," said Patsy Thompson, head of environmental and radiation protection and assessment for the government agency. "There has never been a problem with workers being exposed to high levels of tritium in the SRB facility."

Until recently, SRB Technologies (Canada) Ltd. used tritium from the nuclear reactor in nearby Chalk River to manufacture its highly specialized products. Those products include signs and lights that are illuminated without electricity, such as those used on airport runways.

SRB's licence was recently downgraded following a decision by the nuclear safety commission. The company, which employs an estimated 35 people, can now possess, but not process the radioactive substance.

"We buy tritium light sources, except we're not making them ourselves," company president Stephane Levesque said yesterday. He refused to comment on the report.

Groundwater on the company site was once found to contain up to 80 times the level of radioactive tritium Health Canada allows in drinking water -- a standard nearly 10 times more lenient than that enforced by the United State's Environmental Protection Agency.

Wells within 200 metres of the plant show levels of tritium within the drinking water guideline, but up to 500 times the natural "background" level.