Sessions next week in Pickering, Bowmanville
Nov 20, 2008 - 10:13 AM
By Keith Gilligan
DURHAM -- The performance of the two Durham Region nuclear stations will be discussed next week when the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission holds two information sessions.
The session in Pickering is set for Monday, Nov. 24, at the East Shore Community Centre, on Liverpool Road south of Bayly Street.
For the Darlington station, the session is on Wednesday, Nov. 26, at the Clarington Beech Centre, 26 Beech Ave., in Bowmanville.
During a meeting of the Pickering nuclear station's Community Advisory Council on Tuesday, Mark Elliott said the sessions are being held in communities that host a nuclear station.
CNSC staff completed reports on the performance of all nuclear stations and the performance in 2007 and a portion of 2008 will be discussed during the sessions, Mr. Elliott said.
The CNSC grades a plant performance from A to E, and "no OPG station received either a D or an E," said Mr. Elliott, senior vice-president of Pickering 'A'. "Overall OPG is pleased with the (CNSC) staff results. It confirms our plants are being operated safely.
"All OPG operations are done safely and within regulatory limits," he said.
The grades for Darlington were primarily A or B, with only one C coming in a program related to equipment. The equipment program began last year and the CNSC gave the C as it continues to monitor the program.
Pickering 'B' received grades of A or B, while the 'A' side had seven C grades, including three in the operations area. That had to do primarily to the shutdown of units 1 and 4 over the summer of '07 while an electrical system was upgraded.
In addition to plant performance, there will be highlights of the CNSC's activities in 2007 and '08, and any topic of interest people would like to raise.
The sessions will run from 6:30 to 9 p.m., with the presentation starting at 7 p.m. CNSC staff will also be available afterwards to answer questions.
Mr. Elliott also told CAC members that on the 'A' side, there's been an increase in tritium releases, although he added the levels are "still lower than our regulatory limits.
"We won't know the full public dose numbers until the spring," he said.
The tritium and air emission releases surpassed an internal level, he said.
"In this case, we are still much, much lower than any regulatory limits. It's under control," Mr. Elliott said, adding equipment that "broke down has been fixed. We do have it under control. For a period of this year, it was higher than normal."
"Neither the emission or public dose came anywhere near the dose to public limits. It's our own internal limit," Pickering's public affairs manager Don Terry said.
Workers on the 'A' side have gone 1.7 million hours without a loss-time accident, while on the 'B' side, it's 2.3 million hours, Mr. Elliott said.
Four reactors, units 1, 5, 6 and 8, are at or near high power, while the maintenance outage on Unit 7 is about to end, he said.
Unit 4 was in a brief maintenance outage and should be back in service next week.
Units 2 and 3 have been placed in a permanent shutdown state, with nuclear fuel and heavy water being removed.
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