Toronto politicians to discuss emergency response for nuclear power plants

The question of whether the radius of the “primary response zones,” around Ontario nuclear generating facilities, should be increased from 10 to 50 kilometres is on the agenda of a meeting of Toronto politicians scheduled Tuesday.

Three recommendations from 11 city councillors are scheduled to be considered by the Executive Committee of Toronto City Council Dec. 1.

One of those is for the City Manager to report, by March 2016, on “the appropriateness” of the 10 kilometre “primary response zone” around the Pickering and Darlington plants, for the distribution of potassium iodide pills to the public.

“This provincially defined 10 km primary zone is the area in which the Province maintains emergency measures, such as public alerting and detailed evacuation plans,” 11 city councillors wrote in a letter dated Nov. 24.

The councillors are requesting that the City Manager, in consultation with the Medical Officer of Health and the Office of Emergency Management, report to the executive committee on whether that primary zone should be increased to a 50-kilometre radius.

The councillors recommend that staff report back to the executive committee by March, 2016. The executive committee, chaired by Mayor John Tory, is also comprised of 12 of the city’s 44 councillors. The full council is scheduled to consider the recommendations Dec. 9.

Ontario Power Generation’s Darlington nuclear generating station – which has four reactors producing about 3.5 Gigawatts – is 70 kilometres east of downtown Toronto and about 40 km east of the city limits. The Pickering nuclear power plant – which has six reactors with a total output of about 3.1 Gigawatts, is about 30 kilometres east of downtown Toronto and less than 10 kilometres east of the city limits.

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Another recommendation before the Executive Committee Dec. 1 is for staff to report on Toronto’s emergency response protocols for nuclear risks and international best practices for the Pickering and Darlington plants. The third recommendation is for staff to report on the status of the license renewal for the Darlington station.

The 11 councillors noted in their letter that the potassium iodide pills being mailed to residents in the 10-kilometre zone “are meant to prevent the thyroid from absorbing radioactive iodine, which travels as a gas in a nuclear disaster, therefore reducing the risk of thyroid cancer.”

Ontario Power Generation “has said that” people living and working within 50 kilometres of the power plants – who are in the “secondary zone” – can order potassium iodide pills for free online, the councillors stated in their letter.

“The Ontario government plans to spend billions to extend the operational lives of nuclear power plants,” the councillors wrote. “If these reactors continue to operate, it is clearly in the best interest of Torontonians that there be transparent and comprehensive emergency plans in place to ensure public safety.”

The councillors who signed the letter were Mike Layton, Michael Thompson, Norm Kelly, Glenn De Baeremaeker, Gary Crawford, Chin Lee, Paul Ainslie, Jim Karygiannis, Raymond Cho, Michelle Berardinetti and Ron Moeser.

The largest nuclear power plant in the world that is currently producing power is the Bruce Nuclear Generating Station, on Lake Huron about 50 kilometres north of Goderich. That plant is leased to Bruce Power LP.

Outside of Ontario, there is only one nuclear generating station – NB Power’s Point Lepreau plant west of Saint John – currently producing power in Canada. Hydro Quebec’s Gentilly facility – on the St. Lawrence River southeast of Trois Rivieres – was shut down in December, 2012.

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After the Fukushima disaster in 2011, Bruce Power simulated the effects of flooding, a large wave coming from the lake as well as a tornado similar to the one that hit Goderich in 2011, Bruce Power’s vice president of nuclear oversight and regulatory affairs – Frank Saunders – said in September, 2014 during a presentation at the National Insurance Conference of Canada.

“We have looked at Fukushima very closely,” Saunders said at NICC 2014 in Ottawa, an annual conference organized by MSA Research Inc. “It was what you call a very low probability event. Generally we talk about frequencies that are in the range of one in 100,000 years to one in 10 million years as being the range of likelihood of occurrence of these things.”

He was referring to the disaster March 11, 2011, when an earthquake measuring 9.1 on the Richter scale off the coast of Japan caused an 11-metre high tsunami. That wave hit the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, leading to a contamination leak.

“Lessons can be learned from nuclear tragedies in other parts of the world, lessons that can better prepare us and ensure the safety of Toronto residents,” the 11 Toronto city councillors wrote in their Nov. 24 letter. They noted that the 10 km primary zone was established in the 1980s.

In Canada, nuclear operators are liable – without requiring claimants to prove fault or negligence – for injury or damage to third parties resulting from the fissionable or radioactive properties of the material that they hold. The liability limit was increased – from $75 million to $650 million Feb. 26, when Bill C-22 was passed into law.

Under the legislation, the limit will increase to $1 billion by February, 2018.

Bill C-22, the Energy Safety and Security Act, created the Nuclear Liability and Compensation Act and repealed the Nuclear Liability Act (NLA). Operators must cover at least 50% of their liability by an insurer approved by the federal natural resources minister. They may cover up to 50% with an alternative financial scheme, such as assets, provincial loan guarantees or letters of credit. It was tabled in January, 2014 by Joe Oliver, then Canada’s Conservative Minister of Natural Resources.