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| ! } "A Famlly Tradition for 128 Years" PORT PERRY STAR - Tuesday, April 26,1994 - 13 I _ETTERS +e A 3 Responding to writer To the Editor: I am writing in response to the April 19 letter of Wes Jack- son of Scarborough, who alleged that my letter of March 29 ("Nuclear Ads Misleading") was itself misleading. Not so. The fact remains that Onta- rio nuclear stations at Picker- ing, Darlington and Bruce rou- tinely release various kinds of radioactive contaminants. The regulations which govern these releases are extremely lax, and environmental groups have argued for years that they should be tightened up. The fed- eral regulatory agency has come part wa towards our posi- tion, and in the near future will be making the radiation dose limits about five times more. strict. We think this is still too lax. Looking at a more specific ex- ample, one of the radioactive pollutants of most concern is tritium, known to cause cancer. The Canadian guideline for trit- ium in drinking water is 40,000 becquerels per litre (Bg/l). This compares very poorly to the American standard, which is about 800 Bg/l. Nuclear Aware- ness Project, and its local affili- ate Durham Nuclear Aware- ness, believe that the level should properly be reduced to the current background level in the Great Lakes, which is less than 10 Bqg/l. This is not a total- ly academic question, as Mr. Jackson would have you be- lieve. A serious leak of tritium contaminated heavy water oc- curred at the Pickering Nuclear Station in Aug. 1992. The leak was only three per cent of what the Pickering Nuclear Station is allowed to release in a month, yet there was a peak of 1, 300 Bg/l in drinking water at the Ajax water plant -- well over the American limit of 800 Bq/l. That is why Ontario's Advisory Com- mittee on Environmental Stan- dards is now giving serious con- sideration to dramatic reductions in the permissable levels of tritium in drinking wa- ter. The risk of contracting can- cer from tritium exposure is slight, but there is not doubt that Durham Region residents are at increased risk due to radi- ation emissions from the Pick- | ering and Darlington nuclear stations. The chance of a really serious accident is also low, but not as low as Mr. Jackson and Ontario Hydro would have you believe. According to an independent ex- pert, the chance of a catastroph- ic accident is about one in ten thousand per reactor per year. The level of risk is about the same as it was at Chernobyl. With 20 operating reactors in Ontario, for the remainder of their estimated 40 year life- times, this means a chance of aboutonein 17. Mr. Jackson would also have * you believe that provincial emergency plans will protect you adequately in the event of a serious accident. Guess again. For several years Durham Nu- clear Awareness has argued that emergency plans are inad- equate. We believe that the pri- mary evacuation zone should be expanded from 10 km. to 30 km.: and that stable iodine tab- lets should be provided to all residences and businesses in the primary zone (the tablet would help to block the inges- tion of radioactive iodine in the event ofan accident). So far, On- tario Hydro has blocked even these modest precautionary 2.9 measures. Finally, Mr. Jackson, is dead wrong on the "necessity" of nu- clear power. While we cannot shut down the nuclear stations overnight, there is plenty of con- servation, renewable energy and cogeneration to replace nu- clear power. Ontario Hydro has already announced the phase- out of a reactor at the Bruce "A" Nuclear Station. Nuclear power is a technology of the past, not the future. Sincerely, David H. 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