Pickering "Radiation-level survey comes up clean"

["Franta, Jaroslav" <frantaj@aecl.ca>]

FYI,
> posted at
> http://www.thestar.com/editorial/toronto/20000128NEW03_CI-GAMMA28.html
> January 28, 2000   <<...>> 	
> Radiation-level survey comes up clean 
> Analysis fails to measure traces of toxic tritium 
> By Stan Josey 
> Toronto Star Durham Region Bureau Chief
> A $200,000 airborne survey of ground radiation in communities around the
> Pickering and Darlington nuclear generating stations found no unexpected
> sources of man-made gamma radiation. 
> It did find extensive areas of ground contamination by Cesium-137, a
> byproduct of worldwide nuclear bomb tests in the 1950s and 1960s, but at
> levels which pose no measurable danger to human health. 
> However, nuclear critics call the survey, conducted from a helicopter in
> September and October of last year, nothing more than a ``public relations
> effort'' designed to justify the continued operation of the oldest
> functioning nuclear plant in Canada at Pickering. 
> ``The survey found what Ontario Power Generation expected it to find -
> nothing,'' said David Martin of the Nuclear Awareness Project, based in
> Uxbridge. His group is pushing for a permanent shutdown of the four
> nuclear generators in the Pickering A station, calling them ``worn out and
> unsafe.'' 
> As part of an $8 billion overhaul of Ontario's nuclear program, the power
> company is conducting an environmental assessment aimed at restarting the
> Pickering A plant, which has been shut since 1997. 
> Martin called the study a ``waste of ratepayers' money'' and said the
> company should be spending money finding out what caused a 40 per cent
> hike in the rate of childhood leukemia in some areas around the Pickering
> facility. 
> ``It would be far better to spend the money testing for levels of tritium
> in the community around the plant,'' he said. 
> Both gamma and tritium radiation are byproducts of nuclear power but both
> also occur naturally in the environment. 
> Laurie Swami, environment manager at Pickering, told a news conference at
> the station yesterday that the natural and bomb test-related levels of
> radiation are much higher in the surrounding community than any radiation
> released from the nuclear plants. 
> She said there was no evidence that any of the radiation found in a
> 10-kilometre radius of the sites came from the plants. 
> According to the survey, the safest places to be were on roads - notably
> Highway 401 through Toronto and Durham, parking lots, subdivisions and
> buildings where asphalt and building materials provide an artificial
> shield from the natural and bomb-related radiation. 
> Swami admitted the survey did not look for tritium, which has leaked from
> the plants in the past. 
> Pickering plant spokesperson Pat O'Brien said extensive testing for
> tritium emissions from the plants both in water, air and the earth have
> shown they are well within limits proscribed by federal and provincial
> authorities. 
> O'Brien said the gamma radiation testing was ordered in response to
> community interest in Pickering. 
> He said it was one of 160 recommendations drafted by an environmental
> advisory group composed of a cross-section of community representatives. 
> Swami said there are no measurable health effects from any of the
> radiation found during the recent survey. ``There's nothing out there to
> worry about.'' 
> <><><><><><><><><><>
> 
> Comment: the above Greenpeace attitude reminds me of their propaganda
> campaign in Tahiti (French Polynesia) - related to France's nuclear
> weapons testing at Mururoa & Fangataufa. After international teams failed
> to find any above-normal radiation levels in Tahiti, Greenpeace continued
> to hype an alleged increase in cancer rates REGARDLESS. They, along with
> some independent collaborators, succeeded in raising such enormous
> anti-French hysteria in the local population, that several instances of
> mob violence & vandalism resulted (airport terminal building was gutted by
> fire, cars on streets were burned, etc), as did one case of murder of a
> French national in Papeete (the capital of Tahiti) and the bombing of a
> local telephone office.
> 
> I think that these two cases illustrate for us the fact that the average
> person is so ignorant about radiation, that fanatics like Greenpeace can
> get away with outrageous claims like insisting that there is a cancer risk
> from "nuclear" (ghosts ? ether ? spirit ?) even when there is no
> radioactivity in the environment that could possibly be responsible.
> 
> jaro
frantaj@aecl.ca
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