by NOEMI LOPINTO

The call for a referendum is urgent in five municipalities lining the St. Lawrence, but it has nothing to do with language disputes. Citizens living in Bécancour, Trois-Rivières, Champlain, Nicolet and St-Pierre-les-Becquets are battling for the right to decide whether they want Gentilly-2, Quebec's only operational nuclear power plant, to keep running in their backyard.

Operating since 1983, Gentilly-2 now needs a facelift. The reactor, designed to produce electricity until 2013, is ageing more rapidly than expected. Hydro-Québec needs an estimated $845-million to renovate it and build more storage space for radioactive waste. The stated goal of the repairs is to extend the plant's functionality until 2035, but renovations may be necessary if the reactor is to even make it to 2013.

Hydro-Québec has already begun drumming up support, sponsoring five outreach meetings with the public in the region's municipalities. The last of these took place three weeks ago in Trois-Rivières, where approximately 200 citizens showed up to declare their opposition. Residents raised their voices at the three Hydro representatives sitting stunned at the front of the room. The call for a referendum was repeated, with many demanding the plant be dismantled completely.

One of the most insistent speakers was Marcel Jetté, spokesperson for Regroupement des travailleurs victimes du nucléaire. Jetté, 66, worked off and on as a welder inside the reactor over a 14-year-span beginning in 1983, and was diagnosed with a slow-moving, incurable cancer in 1997. Although the Commission de la santé et de la sécurité du travail denied his application for compensation for work-related illness, he believes his disease is due to radiation exposure at Gentilly-2.

"I am against repairing the power plant," says Jetté, "because I know they can't do it without contaminating other people. There isn't a radiation dose that is without risk. They are hiding behind the law. If they had told us [working there] that any dose is a health risk, nobody would have done it."

Radiation realities disputed

Michel Rhéaume, Hydro-Québec's "Pre-Project Communicator," refutes the group's concerns and denies the charge that radiation from Gentilly-2 is responsible for what citizens' groups claim are high rates of thyroid disorders, leukemia and cancer in the area. He is convinced popular opposition is due to the scare tactics of "pressure groups."

"These people are speaking with their hearts," says Rhéaume. "But my job is to present Hydro's project and to get authorization from the provincial and federal governments. Gentilly-2 is necessary to Hydro, we built it and it's very important that it continue to operate. We want to manage our investment the best we can. I can't say an accident is not possible, but the effect of the accident will not be the same because we have containment around the reactor. I believe the risk is worth it."

Gentilly-2 is located on the south shore of the St. Lawrence River, about 15 kilometres southeast of Trois-Rivières. The CANDU PHW (pressurized heavy water) reactor's production capacity of 675 megawatts produces three per cent of the province's electricity. The reactor cost $1.4-billion and took 10 years - from 1973 to 1983 - to build. Dismantling it would take approximately the same amount of time.

If Hydro-Québec can get permission from the provincial government for the planned project, this would be the first renovation of a nuclear facility in Canada. The country's reactors are all approximately the same age (a similar examination is underway at New Brunswick's Pointe Lepreau's nuclear facility). Whether these plans are approved or not, Hydro-Québec has already received permission from the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) - a Crown corporation whose mandate is to regulate nuclear energy and materials in Canada, including medical use in hospitals - to build 11 more high-level radioactive waste disposal modules (concrete containment buildings eight metres wide by seven metres high and 22 metres long). Gentilly-2's current waste storage is at almost 100 per cent capacity.

Security inadequacies no problem

At a hearing in late 2002, Hydro requested a five-year, rather than the usual two-year, operating licence from the CNSC. Present at the hearing were activists from Mouvement Vert Mauricie, Sierra Club and the Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility (CCNR) who made oral and written presentations opposing Hydro's request. During the hearings, the CNSC's own staff reported on security inadequacies at Gentilly-2, noting that Hydro-Québec had not fully met radiation protection program expectations. Employees were found "not following proper procedures" when dealing with the radioactive heavy water moderator. And, on infrequent occasions, workers failed to wear their dosimeters (radiation measuring devices). The Commission expressed concern that the radiation protection program did not yet meet "expected standards for quality assurance" and that there may have been indications of problems with the "general safety culture" at Gentilly-2.

Mouvement Vert Mauricie, however, went further, claiming that Hydro-Québec was not reporting worker doses to the National Dose Registry in Ottawa as required. They also expressed concerns about large releases of tritium (radioactive hydrogen) into the environment and suggested releases of radioactivity from the plant may have been the cause of congenital health defects observed in 1993 in Trois-Rivières.

Ultimately, however, the CNSC was of the opinion that the activists' concerns were unfounded, and subsequently accorded Hydro-Québec an unprecedented four-year operating licence for Gentilly-2, on the condition they address the inadequacies pointed out by their own staff.

Gordon Edwards, president of the Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility, says the CNSC is in bed with the industry. "There is no independence," says Edwards. "Their job is to run interference for the nuclear industry. They give [opposition] groups 10 minutes to make a presentation and then they have denials from their own staff and then industry representatives. The hearing's a formality."

Taking out the trash

The Nuclear Fuel Waste Act, passed in November 2002, requires nuclear utilities provide their own recommendations on the long-term management of nuclear waste. The companies, namely Ontario Power Generation, New Brunswick Power and Hydro-Québec, are given the task of finding storage solutions. One proposal still on the table is burial deep in the Canadian Shield. Not surprisingly, environmental activists are radically opposed.

According to François Leduc, the waste facilities project manager at the CNSC, Hydro-Québec is well within safety norms - otherwise the Commission would never have granted them such a long-term licence.

"Within that four years we will see how things are going," says Leduc. "If they go badly, we'll revoke the licence and give them a shorter one. [At present,] they meet the norms established by the Commission. The workers, the public and the environment are well protected."

Edwards disagrees. "The safety of the reactor is primarily the area of responsibility of the owners," he explains. "In 1997, the board of directors of Ontario Hydro hired a firm of American experts to come and look at the plants. As a result of their report, they shut down seven nuclear reactors. How come the CNSC didn't tell them to run their industries properly?

"The Nuclear Liability Act [passed in 1970] limits the financial liability of a nuclear plant to a maximum of $75-million for offsite consequences, which is peanuts compared to total costs. Insurance companies worldwide have adopted a policy called the Nuclear Exclusion Clause. They will not cover property against radioactive damage caused by an accident. Nuclear reactors are a potentially very dangerous technology. For the price, we don't really need that three per cent."

The CNSC estimates the proposed renovations to Gentilly-2 will take no less than 18 months, although Hydro claims it will take closer to five years. The renovations will require more storage space for the high- and low-level radioactive waste that will inevitably result. The five current modules contain 48,000 highly radioactive "fuel bundles," and tens of thousands more bundles sit in a pool of radioactive water, waiting to be stored permanently. Gentilly-2 generates between 4,000 to 5,000 fuel bundles a year. The reactor contains 380 highly radioactive pressure tubes, which will be replaced during the renovations, which will also need to be stored.

No nukes is good nukes

In the meantime, Champlain residents have created a group entitled "Zéro Nucléaire" and have been meeting with Mouvement Vert Mauricie, Environment Jeunesse and the CCNR for ideas. Quebec's 17 regional environmental councils (CRE) have voted unanimously to adopt a resolution demanding the province withdraw from all nuclear programs by 2008.

"This is a societal choice we have to make," says Chantal Trottier, president of the CRE de la Mauricie, "about the security of the population. Nobody can tell us how much Gentilly-2 will really cost. The $845-million is a hypothesis. Hydro-Québec has $600-million set aside to take the thing apart. They are more sure of the costs of dismantling than of fixing it up. They were wrong about the length of the reactor's life span. They were wrong about how much it would cost to build. The population is worried, which justifies a larger consultation. A referendum is necessary. It's up the population of Quebec to decide whether they want to pursue with this. We will never be prudent enough with nuclear power."