<Date>

Via email: <email address of your chosen elected representative>

<Name of Elected Representative>
<Office Address of Elected Representative>

Dear <Elected Representative> ,

I write to request that you speak out against allocating any more federal funding to cover escalating costs associated with the delayed Point Lepreau Generating Station nuclear refurbishment project. Will you please demand assurances from the federal government that no federal money allocated for New Brunswickers, such as equalization payments, project and program funding, will be diverted to nuclear power operations. The Canadian government must guarantee that it will not jeopardize federal programs by bailing out AECL and New Brunswick Power. Refurbishing Lepreau is obviously a very reckless move for more than one reason.

As you are no doubt aware, the current government has been trying to sell Atomic Energy Commission of Canada (AECL) without interested buyers for some years. The Point Lepreau equipment is effectively obsolete, as there will be no further refinements of AECL’s CANDU reactor designs.

With regard to public and worker health and safety, all nuclear power plants in the world release chemically toxic radioactive elements to their surrounding environments; they can travel for miles, poisoning the air, land, water and enter human bodies directly and through the food chain. The Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO) has admitted that the waste left on site at nuclear power plants will be dangerously radioactive indefinitely and that there is no safe way to contain nuclear waste.

It is scientifically documented that children who live near nuclear power plants suffer much higher rates of childhood leukemia than others, while residents living in the vicinity of nuclear plants experience increased incidence of other health effects, notably cancers, birth defects, thyroid and cardiac conditions, among others. National pollutant release data shows that Point Lepreau emits the highest levels of dangerously radioactive tritium than any reactor in Canada. While other jurisdictions, such as Toronto and the province of Ontario, appear to be to reducing public exposure to tritium’s harmful effects, New Brunswick has taken no such steps.

The Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) operates under risk-benefit assumptions that are risking the health of a percentage of Canadians for the questionable benefits of nuclear electricity generation and provision of radioisotopes for military weapons. They admit to relying on recommendations from the International Committee for Radiation Protection (ICRP) as the basis for their regulations. Even worse, the present federal government has rendered the CNSC all but irrelevant by interfering in public safety matters, such as removing its then-CEO Linda Keen and replacing her with an executive who overruled safety compliance orders that she had issued. Canada has been virtually without an independent body to protect public health and maintain international nuclear safety standards since that time, unlike other nations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, including the United States and France.

In 2002, New Brunswick’s Energy and Utilities Board advised NB Power, in the public interest, not to proceed with plans to refurbish the Point Lepreau reactor. This unexpectedly early refurbishment was likely necessary due to problems with its technical design dating back to the initial installation, which resulted in total costs skyrocketing to triple the original budget. The EUB reported that the financial risk from the first-of-its-kind refurbishment (before the end of its expected lifetime) was much too great for the province to undertake, that the cost of power generated from a refurbished Lepreau would be higher than the utility could charge its customers and that cheaper alternatives were readily available.

However, the province ignored this advice and went ahead with the refurbishment, which was supposed to take a year-and-a-half to complete. It has now stretched to about four-and-a-half years. Despite the additional time and steadily rising cost overruns due to numerous delays, there is still no certainty as to when – or if – the refurbishment will be completed or how much it will eventually cost the public. Technical reports are demonstrating that it is nearly impossible to manufacture new parts for the aging reactor. This problem may well be related to the under-reported fact that the mechanical components of nuclear reactors are subject to molecular changes over time after being exposed to high levels of radioactivity and high operating temperatures.

Ontario’s privately-owned Bruce Power has dismantled and replaced 16 steam generators in their CANDU reactors; they were only 6 years older than those at Point Lepreau. I understand that attempted corrosion control strategies for their old equipment failed. The corrosion problem, and therefore problems of radioactive chemicals leaching into the surrounding environment – and the bodies of life forms – appears to be endemic to the CANDU reactor design.

After reviewing a number of reports on the Lepreau CANDU refit, I wonder whether the recurrent problems of repeatedly having to replace Point Lepreau reactor parts (i.e. the calandria tubes, which house uranium fuel bundles, pressure tubes and seals) are occurring because AECL and NB Power are attempting to replace new parts onto corroded housing. It is interesting to note that, although having experienced successful first-of-its-kind refitting of two of their CANDU reactors, Bruce Power withdrew from negotiations for their participation in the refurbishment of Point Lepreau. All of these concerns must be addressed with the knowledge that worldwide, the nuclear power profession is experiencing a “brain-drain” as a majority of professional nuclear workers are approaching retirement and there are too few graduates to replace them.

In the past, Canada was not a target of international terrorism or a participant in Cold War. Canada’s rejection as a member of the United Nations Security Council indicates that our country must address our security policies, including those with regard to nuclear proliferation. The refurbishment experiment at Point Lepreau may benefit nuclear operators in Korea and other countries, but at what cost to New Brunswick’s, Canada’s and international security?

Premier David Alward is now telling the Harper government that he wants OTHER CANADIANS — taxpayers from other provinces — to pay for New Brunswick’s bad decision to experiment with refurbishing.

In an already weak economic climate, it is unfair to burden Canadian taxpayers by throwing good money after bad. Our children and grandchildren will eventually be taxpayers. It is unfair to expect the next generations to fund the disastrous Lepreau refurbishment. How many green jobs will be destroyed by subsidies to aging, leaking nuclear power plants? Canada’s energy future depends on a sustainable path forward, employing the kinds of successful energy efficiency and conservation strategies that the United States, European and Asian countries are pursuing. We must not allow our children’s future tax dollars to subsidize Point Lepreau, New Brunswick’s dirty, unhealthy white elephant simply to achieve 30 more years of nuclear waste.

Thank you for taking time to review my concerns. Please notify me of any actions that you take to ask for a halt to the decommissioning and to stop any flow of federal dollars for the highly problematic Point Lepreau experiment.

Sincerely yours,

<signature>
<Your Name>
<Your electoral riding>

cc. International Institute of Concern for Public Health <info@iicph.org>