Pickering Nuclear Power Station Lacks Experienced Staff To Deal With Serious Accident, Emergencies

Comment: We include Canada because it will be the Canadian companies (which the Can. Gov't has certain amount ownership, Like the French) mining Coles Hills. Canada cut corners when it comes to the nuke cycle!

AHN Staff

Calgary, Alberta (AHN) - The Chalk River nuclear reactor shutdown has Canada take a second look at its nuclear facilities. An assessment made by the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission of the country's seven nuclear plants for 2008 showed that the nation's oldest power reactor in Pickering may compromise public safety because of its shortage of experienced staff to handle disaster and emergency situations.

Aside from the experienced manpower lack, the assessment report, which will be presented at a hearing next week, pointed to the outages which had occurred at the Ontario Power Generation plant in Pickering because of equipment malfunction and other problem areas.

The report said the Pickering plants lost one-fourth of its output in 2008 because of unplanned closures, while the three other nuclear power stations in Ontario suffered only an average of 1 percent lost output.

Pickering A and B both got an integrated plant rating from the commission of Satisfactory.

For 2008 Pickering A went through 10 forced outages, two setbacks and no serious process failures.

Field inspection by the commission's staff showed observed housekeeping deficiencies, including water on the floor, clutter, scaffolding that are out-of-service and equipment which should be removed.

A CNSC request made in 2004 that an analysis of minimum staffing needs for common accidents like fire and earthquakes be made. However, the CNSC found out that the Pickering station management did not address the issues to CNSC's satisfaction.

The commission also found out in 2007 that the design of the Inter-station Transfer Bus had deficiencies existing since its installation in 1991. Pickering put in place a temporary modification to meet design intent, but it still lacks redundancy, cuts reliability and relies heavily on operator action.

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