Pickering nuclear alert underscores need for greater transparency
On the morning of January 12th Ontario residents received an Amber Alert from the provincial government noting that ‘an incident’ had occurred at the Pickering Nuclear Generating Station (PNGS). The province later explained that the alert was issued in error and related to a training exercise (rather than an actual event). We believe the incident has underscored larger systemic and province-wide problems with public communication and transparency in the nuclear sector. Now is an opportunity to address this.
The PNGS is Canada’s oldest still-running nuclear plant. It is nestled in one of the most highly populated areas in the country and sits directly on the north shore of Lake Ontario. For over a decade, Waterkeeper’s investigations into the station’s environmental footprint have given cause for a variety of concerns over its adverse impact to the swimmability, drinkability, and fishability of the lake. These investigations have also highlighted significant deficits in the plant’s transparency, especially concerning access to environmental monitoring information.
Waterkeeper intervened before the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) in the licence renewal hearings for the PNGS in 2008, 2013, and 2018. In each proceeding, we alerted the Commission and the public to the fact that the Station was consuming massive amounts of lake water to cool its reactors, polluting local lake water and killing or injuring millions of fish in the process. In 2018, Waterkeeper’s technical experts also found evidence to suggest there have been serious historical and ongoing leaks of tritium to local groundwater immediately below the reactors. To date, Ontario Power Generation (OPG) has not provided all requested environmental monitoring data. Most recently, Waterkeeper followed up on its concerns by intervening in a 2019 CNSC meeting, where we underscored how ongoing information deficits do not serve Ontarians.
A lack of publicly available environmental information impacted Waterkeeper’s 2017 intervention in the relicensing hearing for the Pickering Waste Management Facility (PWMF). At that time, the CNSC ordered additional environmental disclosures and instituted an additional comment period to address the information deficit. Based in part on this experience, the CNSC has since made amendments to regulations concerning environmental disclosure, but much more is required.
Waterkeeper has been calling for more frequent and comprehensive environmental sampling for all nuclear facilities in the Lake Ontario watershed for over a decade. In particular, we have regularly made facility-specific recommendations for the PNGS and other nuclear facilities to conduct more frequent air, stormwater, groundwater and surface water quality monitoring. We consistently recommend clearer and more comprehensive monitoring parameters to help ensure testing is done for all radionuclides and toxics/hazardous substances that may be present at the PNGS and other nuclear facilities. Waterkeeper also advocates for the public disclosure of raw monitoring data in real-time so that any and all assertions of safety can be easily understood and verified by the public.
Had OPG implemented Waterkeeper’s recommendations, members of the public concerned about the Amber Alert on January 12th could have gone online to check real-time data and see for themselves whether anything abnormal was occurring at the PNGS.
The public has a right to know about the impacts the PNGS and other nuclear facilities have on the ecosystems in which they are situated, whether these impacts are a product of emergency events or routine operations. As the provincial government conducts its investigation into the January 12th Pickering alert, it should do so while keeping in mind the broader need for greater transparency around nuclear facilities’ impact to watershed ecosystems and the communities that depend on them.
At a minimum, immediate improvements must be made concerning the timing and content of public alerts for unplanned events at nuclear facilities. The following includes a discussion of the January 12th alert and recommendations for future improvements.
The PNGS Amber Alert was sent at 7:19am. It asserted there was “no abnormal release of radioactivity from the station” but that emergency staff were responding to the situation. The message was addressed to those living within 10 km of the station and they were told there was no need for them to take any protective actions at that time. The public was told to remain tuned in to local media for further information and instructions. It was only at 9:12 am, two hours later, that the province released a second notice to notify the public that the original alert should not have been sent.
This meant that for two hours, the public was made aware of a potential nuclear emergency, but effectively provided with no information to discern or verify what it was or how they could be effected. The alert was only provided in English, and only those with the latest updated software on their mobile phones received the alert.
At 8:06am, OPG sent out a tweet asserting the alert was sent in error. Between then and the 9:12 alert, the CNSC, local municipalities, and first responders noted via twitter that they were looking into the issue. However, those without social media were unlikely to receive such assurances before the 9:12am second alert. It was only by 12:25pm that the province presented a press release explaining there was no incident at the PNGS and that the alert was issued in error during a “routine training exercise”. The CNSC issued an email statement at 4:55pm echoing the provincial press release. All morning, OPG communications staff were unavailable to field public questions. OPG representatives encouraged members of the public to email their concerns to the company, with the assurance that their emails would be addressed in due course.
Moving forward, the following should become standard communications practice for municipalities, the province, and applicable regulators:
Any initial alert should contain a description of the event and an electronic link to a constantly updated webpage for the incident(s). The webpage should include real-time monitoring data showing actual measured or estimated releases and include clear references to all applicable regulatory limits (so that the public can understand the severity of the event). The webpage should also communicate when the event ends or is contained, and outline any follow-up activity that will be undertaken.
Trained communications staff should always be on-hand as long as nuclear facilities are operating. Traditional working hours will not always be appropriate for nuclear facilities operating 24 – 7.
Alerts should be provided immediately in both official languages. Access to alerts translated into additional commonly spoken languages should also be made available.
If communications infrastructure is being tested for training purposes, any sent alerts should clearly state so.
1/ Submissions of Swim Drink Fish Canada/Lake Ontario Waterkeeper Re: Relicensing hearing before the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission for the Pickering Nuclear Generating Station, May 18, 2018, online: http://www.waterkeeper.ca/blog/2018/6/26/pngs-full-submission.
2/ OPG has more recently installed a net that mitigates fish impingement and entrainment, Waterkeeper experts assessed its efficacy in its 2018 intervention. Ibid.
3/ Some aggregated data is provided, though inconsistently, in quarterly and annual reports, however, this and other disclosure does not document all contaminant pathways at the PNGS and falls far short of the information required to provide the public with a full understanding of the PNGS and its impacts to the swimmability, drinkability, and fishability of Lake Ontario.
4/ Submissions of Swim Drink Fish Canada/Lake Ontario Waterkeeper Re: Commission meeting to consider CNSC staff Regulatory Oversight Report for Canadian Nuclear Generating Sites: 2018, October 30, 2019, online:
5/ Submissions of Lake Ontario Waterkeeper Re: Relicensing hearing before the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission for the Pickering Waste Management Facility, March 31, 2017, online:
6/ Lake Ontario Waterkeeper’s comment on the 2014 and 2017 Environmental Risk Assessments for the Pickerng Nuclear Generating Station and Pickering Waste Management Facility, July 21, 2017, online:
7/ Namely, Environmental Risk Assessments (ERAs) must be publicly disclosed by licensees. However, ERAs often lack detailed or disaggregated environmental data. Submissions of Lake Ontario Waterkeeper Re: public consultation concerning the proposed REGDOC-3.2.1, September 28, 2017, online:
The Regulation and document history can be accessed here