Rumina Velshi needs to protect people, not OPG's profits

Rumina Velshi, President of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) has dismissed the concerns raised by the Ontario Clean Air Alliance (OCAA) and the Globe and Mail about the safety of the Pickering Nuclear Station’s critically important pressure tube system with the observation that the OCAA has brought forward “no new evidence.”

The irony, of course, is that this is exactly our point: we need new evidence to determine if Pickering’s pressure tubes are still fit for service.  

                                               Rumina Velshi, President and Chief Executive Officer of the CNSC

The CNSC signed off on a 10-year licence extension despite knowing that Ontario Power Generation (OPG) was working with deeply flawed data about one of the plant’s most important safety concerns – the fitness of the pressure tubes. To obtain “new” evidence about whether Pickering’s tubes are safe or not, Ms. Velshi must insist that OPG temporarily shut down the Pickering Nuclear Station to allow it to obtain proper samples. After all, a failure of one of these tubes could have critical consequences, including a cascading failure similar to what happened at Fukushima. 

While the CNSC tries to split hairs about new vs. old evidence, Pickering continues to operate despite there actually being no evidence that its pressure tube system has not become dangerously brittle and prone to ruptures.

That the CNSC thought It would be a good idea to continue operating antiquated nuclear reactors without a full tube replacement is rolling the dice once; doing so without good data on the state of these tubes, is rolling them blindfolded. 

Enough is enough.  We deserve much better from our nuclear regulator.  It’s time for the CNSC to show some backbone and demand real answers from OPG.  And that can only happen by shutting down Pickering now for a proper safety assessment.

Read our April 7th letter to Ms. Velshi here.

What you can do

Please click here to ask Ms. Velshi to direct OPG to present accurate information obtained from proper samples taken from Pickering’s pressure tubes. Until this happens, Ms. Velshi must put a moratorium on the continued operation of the Pickering Nuclear Generating Station.

Please pass this message on to your friends.

Thank you!