Eldorado Facts Detailed - The Sault Star, 1981

The Sault Star - May 20, 1981

Public Meeting

Eldorado Facts Detailed

EDITOR'S NOTE -

Blind River and area residents concerned about the construction of the Eldorado Trioxide Refinery jammed into the Legion Hall earlier this month to find out more about the facility. Although the story was covered generally in The Star, this story gives those interested, but unable to attend, a full idea of what went on at the meeting.

BY CELINA BARNES - Special To The Star

BLIND RIVER -

The town of Blind River invited the public to an information session on the Eldorado Trioxide Refinery held at the Legion Hall May 11.

The townspeople, as well as area residents from Thessalon to Espanola and Manitoulln Island, responded by packing the hall. Blind River Mayor Bob Gallagher indicated that representative groups of both the provincial and federal regulatory departments would be explaining their roles as would representatives from Eldorado Nuclear and Lummus Company Canada.

The panel of government agencies which work in conjunction with Eldorado Nuclear consisted of the Atomic Energy-Control Board, the Ministry of the Environment, the Ministry of Natural Resources, the Ministry of Labour, Environment Canada, and Health and Welfare Canada.

In his opening remarks, Mayor Gallagher made reference to the formation of the local monitoring committee. He expressed confidence in the expertise of the eleven chosen people. They are residents of Iron Bridge. Thompson I Township, the Mississauga Reserve, Eastman Subdivision, Blind River, and Algoma Mills. Among them are business people both active and semi-retired, a commercial fisherman, a miner, a retired medical doctor, a forester and two high school teachers, one of the latter having an extensive background in scientific studies.

Ron Dakers, the first speaker and representing Eldorado Nuclear, began by describing Eldorado as a crown corporation. It presently employs 1800 people among 4 communities which are Uranium City. Saskatoon, Port Hope and Ottawa. The refinery in Blind River will provide employment for an additional 200 people, 35 to 40 filled by people now employed at the operations in Port Hope, and the remainder from the Blind River Area.

Eldorado is the only refinery business in Canada and is the smallest in the western world. Presently. 20 per cent of production from the Port Hope refinery is supplied to Ontario Hydro.

The refined uranium is also exported to other countries where it is designated for use in nuclear reactors for the generation of electricity.

At the Blind River refinery, the Eldorado speaker stated, under the worst case assumption there could be sulphur dioxide emissions that cause acid rain. However the refinery intends to convert from burning residual oil. which would produce emissions of 0.3 tons of so2 per day (under the worst case assumption), to the use of natural gas which will produce virtually no so2 per day. There would also be uranium dust emission from the plant.

As for the radioactive uranium dust, he said that the emission would be 12,000 times less the recommended level. He emphasized that Eldorado is answerable to both the provincial and federal government and must obey all their environmental regulations.

Mr. Giovanni, the Lummus Construction company manager was the next speaker. He gave an account of the construction progress at the site which started in September. 1980. 100 acres of land have been cleared to include warehouse, shop, administration and process buildings. May, 1983. should mark the end of the construction. Presently there is a working force of 119 people which includes a few Blind River area residents as well as Lummus Supervisory and Administrative personnel. To date, eleven contracts have been awarded. New contracts slated for June 1 include the erection of the structural steel, fencing and the effluent line. Dining, kitchen and recreation rooms have been sized for 400 men.

By 1982. the working force will be Increased to 400 people and gradually decreased as the work is completed. Mr. Giovanni mentioned that wherever possible, local and area businesses and suppliers are used.

Bill Stinson, plant manager for Eldorado followed with a talk about the refinery and a slide presentation of the Port Hope site and the Blind River site. He said that the uranium concentrate or yellowcake will come to the refinery from Elliot Lake and western Canada. In one year the refinery will receive 26,000 tons of yellowcake, 'out of which 22,000 tons of uranium will be refined and processed. There will be 4,000 tons of waste which will return to the mines at Elliot Lake to be recycled.

This waste or raffinate. in solution with sulphuric acid, goes to the mines where trace quantities of uranium are extracted and the acid re-used to lessen the need for fresh acid. He assured the audience that the recycling of the raffinate from the refinery would pose no threat to the area.

In the slides, he showed where Eldorado has operated at Port Hope for 50 years. His slides showed yachting and fishing within the limits of the refinery. He also showed the Blind River plant site and camp site including proposed administration buildings, stores, warehouses, the chemical process area, boiler and the three water monitoring lagoons slated for south of the site.

When the plant opens. Mr. Stinson said that Eldorado would require 200 more people and approximately 100 of these people could be Blind River and area residents.

One by one. the government regulatory agencies explained their roles with regard to the refinery.

The Atomic Energy Control Board spokesman said that the AECB is the "nuclear policeman" in the area of radiation protection. It concerns itself with the health and safety of the public and the refinery workers. The AECB makes its presence felt in three licensing phases. These phases include the approval of the site, the construction stage, and finally the operating stage, provided that all criteria or safeguards are met to the satisfaction of the Board and other government regulatory agencies. To date, the Eldorado refinery has received approval to begin the second stage which is construction.

Ken Ogilvy the senior project coordinator on the environmental aspects of Eldorado's emissions, spoke of Environment Canada. His department's job is to review the operations of the refinery on a dally basis. He and his staff feed advice to their superiors about any concerns they might have regarding the refinery. In other words, it's their job to review, perform inspections and respond to problems. In turn, they report any unremedied problems to the AECB.

The Environment Ontario representative explained that his group works out of the Sudbury regional office. His staff performs inspections of the facility once constructed and through its work makes decisions about approval of emissions to the air, water and land.

The Ministry of Labour was represented by Ben Chan, a senior engineering consultant with the Industrial Health and Safety Branch. This ministry deals with the health and safety of the Eldorado employees and it gives advice and support to the federal government to make things work. This branch reviews engineering drawings of the plant and also looks at things like fire safety, control of handling toxic material and other possible hazards. It also measures levels of radiation. Mr. Chan reiterated that his department's mandate is the occupational health and safety of the worker and it will cooperate to achieve that result.

Dorothy Meyerhof talked about the functions of Health and Welfare Canada. Here, a Radiation Protection Bureau of 15 people sets guidelines to protect the Canadian population, as much as possible, from environmental radioactivity. It determines the potential health effects from environmental radioactivity; it also sets standards and makes recommendations on the impact of radioactivity to public health. To achieve these objectives, this group monitors fallout nationwide. It does monitoring around nuclear reactors and also does some monitoring of natural radioactivity in drinking water supplies across Canada.

In short, its main concern is that of human health, and its main objective is to ensure that the public will not be exposed to unnecessary health risks. These people of Health and Welfare provide advice to and co-operate with international agencies as well as national agencies in the domain of environmental radioactivity. In the Blind River area, her department has begun a review to make sure that the Blind River refinery will be capable of meeting recommended dose limits to the population.

Don Hagar of the Ministry of Natural Resources stated that this department reviews and comments on various stages of applications for siting, construction, and operation of the refinery. The job of the MNR is to determine what effect the refinery could have on its programs. The four areas of concern are the Fishery, Wildlife, Hazard Lands (flooding) and Recreation.

The MNR works with other provincial and federal agencies to ensure that concern over long-term effects of emissions on fisheries would be dealt with. The marsh to the east of the plant site is of local importance to the wildlife and the MNR is promoting a monitoring program in order to identify problems should they develop. The concern about possible flooding has been dismissed on the basis of an engineering analysis done by Eldorado.

In the area of recreation, the Mississauga delta has the potential for a provincial park, but this park, at any time, would only materialize on the basis of a perceived need in the overall provincial park plan. In the light of these facts, the MNR has no basis for recommending against the refinery.

The question-and-answer period after the presentations gave the audience a chance, in most cases to air their concerns and to have further questions answered about Eldorado and the refinery.

One of the questioners asked for the differentiation between the terms "under normal operating circumstances" and "abnormal operating circumstances". With regard to the latter, he referred to the 1978 spill of liquid radioactive waste into the Port Hope harbour which at the time was not reported by Eldorado. The Ontario Ministry of the Environment has taken Eldorado to court for not reporting the incident and this case is still before the courts.

At this point, it was made known that Eldorado, in order to receive operating approval must go through a detailed operating analysis with enough incorporated Into the design of the plant operation so that any incident would be detected as soon as possible.

A family doctor asked about the possibility of a study to determine the risk of low level radiation on the population. There was no encouragement from any quarter with regard to the effectiveness of such a study.

One brief question to the AECB about how many charges had been laid against companies since the AECB's creation in 1946 got the following response: "I think it's less than 10.. .more than 3 or 4.. .not very many."

One person pointed out that the present location of the refinery was not the location discussed at the environmental meetings. Mayor Gallagher confirmed the relocation but asserted that the new location is no closer to anyone than the first site.

One question centred in on the possibility that some excess contaminated material (raffinate) will have to be kept In a warehouse until Eldorado can get some company in the USA to take it.

An AECB official confirmed that small amounts of uranium has been discharged into the North Channel; however, the AECB's practice of sampling fish would detect any significant level and the level in the fish was so low that it was virtually undetectable In the Serpent River. The AECB will be monitoring the effluents from the Blind River refinery and if the level of contamination is not within accepted limits, the AECB will close the refinery.

Algoma MPP Bud Wildman expressed his concern about the jurisdictional mess that surrounds the uranium Industry. He was trying to drive home the point that there are serious problems with regard to protective regulations for the health and safety of the workers. He felt there is too much overlap and confusion between the different government regulatory agencies and stressed that he felt the workers interests would be better served If they were protected by provincial regulations.

Presently, Ontario Bill 70 does not apply to workers in the uranium refinery. This bill says that if a worker suspects a working condition might be unsafe, he has the right to refuse to work. He felt that the federal regulation which spells out that a worker must be in imminent danger before he can refuse to work is less protective.

The last question directed to an Eldorado official revealed that Eldorado had chosen a site for the refinery different from the one recommended by the Environmental Assessment Review Office. To this question, the Eldorado official succinUy replied that Eldorado had been directed by the cabinet of the federal government to build the refinery in Blind River.