The day CANDU became
“NO CAN DO”!

We cannot allow a nuclear waste dump to be built at Chalk River

By Carole Reed

April 16, 2025

The day CANDU became “NO CAN DO” was June 29, 2011, when the Harper government sold the CANDU division of Atomic Energy Canada to SNC Lavalin for $15 million. The increasing influence of the private sector on an industry that should be subject to strict government controls has led to the strong possibility that one of Canada’s greatest rivers is already polluted with radioactive waste and will become even more polluted in the future.

Today the Chalk River Laboratory is owned by Canadian Nuclear Laboratories (CNL), a subsidiary of Atomic Energy of Canada Limited (AECL) and is operated under contract by the Canadian National Energy Alliance (CNEA), a private-sector consortium led by AtkinsRéalis (formerly SNC Lavalin) in partnership with two American companies, Jacobs and Fluor.

Confused? So was I, but I took some time to figure it out.

The Canadian National Energy Alliance operates on a “Government-owned, Contractor-operated” model, or a GoCo. The Canadian public retains ownership of AECL’s federal lands, including shut-down reactors and radioactive waste. And our tax dollars fund the GoCo.

In February 2024, the AtkinsRéalis consortium received a permit from the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission to build a near-surface disposal facility (NSDF) to store low-level radioactive waste near the Chalk River site.

Atomic Energy Canada contracted the AtkinsRéalis consortium to clean up the waste of its defunct NRU reactor at Chalk River. In February 2024, the AtkinsRéalis consortium received a permit from the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission to build a near-surface disposal facility (NSDF) to store low-level radioactive waste near the Chalk River site.

What we can not do is allow a nuclear waste dump to be built at Chalk River, the site of the defunct National Research Universal (NRU) nuclear reactor. To understand my deep concern about this project, you need to know a little about the history of Chalk River.

In 1944, Chalk River Laboratories was built on the shore of the Ottawa River so that water from the river could be used as a coolant and a neutron moderator for our first atomic reactor, the NRX.

In 1952, Atomic Energy of Canada Limited was created to promote the peaceful use of nuclear energy. Despite its good intentions, from 1955 to 1985, AECL supplied the U.S. Department of Energy with plutonium in the form of spent reactor fuel from the Chalk River facility to be used in the production of nuclear weapons.

In the late 1950s, CANDU reactors were developed to generate electricity and to produce cobalt-60 for medical and industrial applications.

Of course, the industry was not without mishaps. Despite all the safety measures put in place, mechanical failures and human error can, and did, occur.

In 1952, the NRX melted down when control rods were accidentally removed from the core and the fuel rods overheated. In 1958, a fuel rupture and fire in the National Research Universal (NRU) reactor building resulted in radioactive contamination of the entire building and a large area outside the building.

Civilians working with the military carried out an extensive clean-up of both incidents. One part of the clean-up involved piping radioactive waste to a sandy area some distance from the Ottawa River. How limited was our understanding of groundwater and riverine systems back then!

‘The NSDF will also be used to store low-level radioactive waste from other sites, some Canadian and some imported from the U.S. and other countries.’

Some military personnel involved in the cleanup reported subsequent health problems. According to the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, “follow-up health monitoring of these workers has not revealed any adverse impacts from the two accidents.” However, the Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility notes that some of the military contingent assigned to clean the NRU reactor building applied for military disability pensions due to damaged health and that their applications were denied.

Now, fast forward to 2007, when the aging NRU reactor needed repairs. To make these repairs, CNSC President and CEO Linda Keen shut the reactor down. But the Harper government, acting on independent expert advice, passed emergency legislation to restart the reactor out of concern for “the safety of citizens requiring essential nuclear medicine.” There may also have been some concern for lost sales revenue, but this is speculation on my part. Linda Keen would later be fired for ignoring a decision by Parliament to restart the reactor.

In 2008, the NRU leaked about seven thousand litres a day of the light water used to cool the reactor, water that was purified and then returned to the Ottawa River. Then, on December 5, 2008, heavy water containing tritium leaked from the NRU.

The reactor was shut down for the last time on March 31, 2018, and has entered a “state of storage” before it can be fully decommissioned, a process that takes many years. Atomic Energy Canada contracted the AtkinsRéalis consortium to build a near-surface disposal facility to contain the waste of its now-defunct reactor. The NSDF will also be used to store low-level radioactive waste from other sites, some Canadian and some imported from the U.S. and other countries.

Approval for building a waste disposal site about a kilometre from the Ottawa River hinged on a promise that only low-level radioactive waste would be accepted. But, as reported by journalist Natasha Bulowski, “former nuclear industry employees and experts warn some waste slated for disposal contains unacceptably high levels of long-lived radioactive material.”

The consortium received its permit to construct the NSDF in 2024, despite serious safety and environmental concerns raised by the Concerned Citizens of Renfrew County, home to the dump site, and by the Anishinaabe peoples living in the area. A report submitted to the CNSC in April 2022 by the Ralliement contre la pollution radioactif, demonstrating that the project does not comply with International Atomic Energy Agency safety standards, was ignored.

‘… the radioactive waste is not safely contained. The NSDF is situated within a riverine system that feeds the Ottawa River, the source of drinking water for 140 municipalities, including Ottawa and Montreal.’

In brief, the radioactive waste is not safely contained. The NSDF is situated within a riverine system that feeds the Ottawa River, the source of drinking water for 140 municipalities, including Ottawa and Montreal. And the structure itself is not below the surface, as “near surface” suggests, but is in fact five stories above ground in an area that, with the onset of climate change, has become a tornado zone.

A complaint about the safety of the structure filed by Concerned Citizens of Renfrew County, the Ralliement contre la pollution radioactif, and the Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility was heard on November 19 and 20, 2024, by the Federal Court of Canada. This legal challenge was unfortunately unsuccessful. Canadian Nuclear Laboratories lawyer Jeremy Barretto argued that “The applicants, in our view, have not met their burden of showing that the decision [to permit the NSDF] has serious shortcomings or fundamental gaps.”

This brings us to the present.

The Kebaowek First Nation in February and March of this year won two court challenges to the NSDF project based on a violation of their rights under the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and on threats to the habitat of at least 26 species at risk in the surrounding environment.

With their efforts, the Kebaowek and the citizen groups fighting with them have bought Canadians a reprieve until September 2026. If we stand together, we can prevent the construction of an NSDF at Chalk River, and we can prevent setting a dangerous precedent for future radioactive pollution of our precious Canadian water. We can say “NO CAN DO!” to Atomic Energy of Canada Limited.

For Canadians to be protected from serious health and environmental effects, low-level waste must be stored underground in watertight and earthquake-proof containment systems and medium- and high-level waste must be stored in deep and stable geological sites, such as abandoned mines.

‘… I am urging the CNSC to relocate the Chalk River nuclear waste depository to a safe place, far from lakes and rivers and far from seismic and tornado zones, and to build in compliance with international nuclear safety standards.’

As president of the Green Coalition, I am urging the CNSC to relocate the Chalk River nuclear waste depository to a safe place, far from lakes and rivers and far from seismic and tornado zones, and to build in compliance with international nuclear safety standards.

If you agree with me, please raise your concerns with your local candidate and ask what his or her party will do to ensure the relocation and safe construction of the nuclear waste dump currently permitted for construction at Chalk River.

And, for more insight into the project, a wealth of information can be found on the Kebaowek website. You can also take a little field trip to Chalk River with two dudes determined to see for themselves what’s going on.

Feature image: Chalk River Laboratory, by I, Padraic Ryan, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

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Carole Reed spent her childhood in Pointe Claire, climbing trees, playing in the woods, and biking through farmland. She became an environmentalist in 1972 after reading Silent Spring. Now retired from teaching, she is devoting the rest of her life to saving the planet for her great-granddaughter.