Saturday, May 14, 2011

Canadian Nuclear Plant at Chalk River

Canadian Prime Minister Harper has been accused of firing Linda Keen just out of spite because he didn't like her conclusions about nuclear safety at the Chalk River Nuclear Lab. That was in 2007, when she was the President and CEO of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission. The PM is characterized as being anti-science to the point of muzzling scientists that say anything that would hurt business. Other events are cited to bolster this conclusion but let’s look at this one first.

The Chalk River reactor makes the majority of the world's supply of medical radioisotopes that are essential for nuclear medicine. There are 4 others in the world that create the balance of them, but they cannot meet the demand. It was shut down for routine maintenance and found to be fully operational and safe. However although it had 2 failsafe power supplies to provide continued cooling in the case of an accident, it was scheduled to be equipped with a third that would be earthquake resistant. It was about 1 year beyond the scheduled timeframe for this to be done.

So, the reactor was deemed to be just as safe as it had always been for decades but not as safe as it could be.  Ms. Keen wanted to keep the reactor off-line until the upgrades were done.  No one doubted her science or questioned that this upgrade would be beneficial. However, the shortage of radioisotopes was beginning to be felt and it was a fair certainty that necessary treatments would be impossible for some people if the reactor remained off line. The decision made by Parliament (remember too that the Conservatives had a minority gov't and so the other parties could have stopped this if they had wanted to) was that the lives that were 100% sure to be in danger if the reactor stayed off-line were to be considered as higher risk than the lives that might be impacted by an earthquake that might happen and might take the other power supplies off-line. Emergency legislation was passed to restart the reactor in opposition to Ms. Keen and the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission. Parliament cited the safety of citizens requiring essential nuclear medicine to be of higher priority than the reactor upgrade.

Ms. Keen refused to obey the legislation and would not allow the reactor to be re-started. She was fired for that choice and NOT because of her opinion that the reactor should be upgraded. Everyone agreed that it should be upgraded, just not immediately. A plan to upgrade the reactor without the loss to the medical community is what was needed.

So, did the Prime Minister act in a way that showed contempt for science or human safety or the democratic process?  I don't see how any of that can be said about this event.