Canadian Nuclear Laboratories image.

Hub Staff

The Douglas Point nuclear facility, located within the Bruce Nuclear site, was the first full-scale nuclear plant to operate in Canada. The plant was in service for 17 years beginning in 1967.

Canadian Nuclear Laboratories (CNL) manage several Atomic Energy of Canada Limited (AECL) owned nuclear sites across Canada including Douglas Point. At the September 28 Committee of Whole meeting in Saugeen Shores, Margot Thompson and Ian Bainbridge from CNL, shared information about their decommissioning project at the Douglas site. CNL is a government owned, contractor operated organization responsible for handling the waste at these sites.

The first phase of decommissioning was completed in 1987 when the initial fuel transfer to dry storage took place. Since that time, the reactor has remained in a safe shutdown state, Phase 2, where CNL staff are actively surveying the facility, maintaining structures and emergency procedures, indicated Thompson.

Phase 3, with a quoted duration of 50 years, involves five sub-phases and will conclude with the complete removal of the facility. CNL plans to first extract the non-nuclear buildings over the next few years and then move on to the rest of the facility. Bainbridge indicated that most of the work will be done long before the proposed completion date of 2070 but some tasks, such as fuel removal from the site, may take longer.

Bainbridge recalled that much of the waste material can be recycled. “The concrete is reused, the steel is recycled, and the soils, once we’ve proven clean, we put them back and help to restore the site as it was,” reported Bainbridge.

CNL is currently applying for the decommissioning licence which will allow them to move ahead with Phase 3 of the project. A public hearing for the licence is scheduled for November 25 and 26. There is a deadline of October 26 for anyone who would like to request to intervene in the hearing via written submissions or oral presentations.

Where and what will happen to the spent fuel was recognized by Thompson as a common question. “The timeline for what we’ll do with the spent fuel at Douglas Point is dependant on the Nuclear Waste Management Organization’s longterm solution for Canada’s nuclear fuel.

Councillor Grace requested an estimate on the volume of the used fuel bundles as well as what percentage it would account for of Canada’s total used fuel. Brainbridge reported 22,000 used fuel individual elements exist on the site. “The concrete canisters that you saw standing there, those actually contain all of the fuel,” said Bainbridge. “So there’s 47 canisters there, 46 of them are full,” he said, further stating that the Douglas Point used fuel accounts for not quite half of all of AECL owned fuel, but a very small portion of all of Canada’s fuel.

“We’re in the much less than 10 percent category with all of AECL,” estimated Bainbridge. “It may even be less than 5 percent but I’d need to check on that."

Saugeen Shores Mayor Luke Charbonneau acknowledged the potential impact of non-radioactive waste material disposal that may be bound for local landfills and encouraged council to participate in these discussions through the scheduled public hearing. Charbonneau also raised concern for the long term storage of the low and intermediate level waste and whether this will end up at the Kincardine site. Bainbridge confirmed that all low-level waste fuel will go to the Chalk River Near Surface Disposal Facility (NSDF).

Information on scheduled events and the scheduled hearing can be found at www.cnl.ca/dp.