Abandoning caution and effectively coopting opposition parties for safety-second Chernobyl-style nuclear policies of his minority government, Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper boasted on 11 December 2007: "there will be no nuclear accident."

Harper referred to the "NRU" nuclear reactor operated by federally-subsidized Atomic Energy of Canada Limited outside its regulatory license at Chalk River, 150 kilometers west of Ottawa on the Ontario shore of the Ottawa River.

NRU (National Research Universal) is an aged (51 years old) facility notable for its production of molybedenum-99 and other radioactive isotopes used in medical diagnoses, which are then processed at an Ottawa plant of MDS Nordion.

MDS Nordion is the isotope division of MDS Inc., known in many communities as a purveyor of medical laboratory services.

Harper responded to a poignant question from Omar Alghabra, the accomplished official opposition Critic for Natural Resources Canada.

Liberal MP Alghabra inquired on 12 December 2007 of Natural Resources Minister Gary Lunn, who curiously manages both AECL and its regulator:

"Will the Minister or the Prime Minister for that matter tell Canadians what will happen if there is a nuclear accident … Who will be responsible? Will it be the Prime Minister?"

Lunn was then apparently exiting the debate, or perhaps yielded to Harper.

In The ACTivist (7 June 2008), I quoted from Alghabra’s website his critical December 2007 - May 2008 parliamentary interrogation of Lunn & Harper. On May 15, Alghabra accused Lunn of "disappearing" on 12 December 2007.

The Harper government rushed Bill C-38 through a nocturnal parliament on 12 December 2007, despite Alghabra’s conscientious intervention. Parliament gullibly accepted Harper’s "no nuclear accident" prediction and enacted Bill C-38.

Bill C-38 empowered AECL "to resume and continue the operation of NRU at Chalk River in Ontario for a period of 120 days … despite any condition of its license," and justified its production-first risks with claims that NRU "is the major producer of medical isotopes in Canada" whose regulated shutdown "has created a serious shortage of medical isotopes in Canada and the world."

According to Green Party of Canada Natural Resources critic Andrew Lewis: "the opposition parties rolled over and accepted Bill C-38 without question, and the result undermined the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission. These parties were unable to appreciate the inherent risks in C-38 and to detect AECL’s lies and the deplorable antiscientific bias of Stephen Harper."

Lewis added: "Green Party MPs would have pressed for an amendment to C-38 assuring parliament and Canadians that no alternatives to the medical isotopes produced at NRU were available."

Insistent government & media allegations starting December 2007 of a "serious shortage in Canada and the world" of medical diagnostic isotopes following the NRU crisis, as far as I can tell derived mainly from World Nuclear Association estimates of the relatively large dollar value of NRU isotope production compared with other sources. (Nuclear Engineering International in July 2008, pp 27-29 published such WNA medical diagnostic isotope market comparisons.)

By analogy, were Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez maliciously to claim that Venezuela’s oil exports vastly exceed in dollar value those of competing petroleum producers, would parliaments then be justified in concluding that a shutdown somehow of Venezuela’s refineries automatically jeopardizes country oil supplies?

Canadian Press unfortunately harped Ottawa’s refrain a few days ago: "The shutdown of the aging [NRU] reactor led to a critical global shortage of medical isotopes [and] the shutdown lasted nearly a month until Parliament voted to bypass the regulator’s order." (July 28)

In the 2004 federal election, Lewis garnered 10,000 votes as the Green candidate in Saanich Gulf Islands, British Columbia, the largest federal election vote total ever for a Canadian Green candidate. Lewis’ vote in the 2001 Saanich provincial election exceeded 25 percent.

Through Lunn, on January 15, Harper’s Cabinet arbitrarily demoted Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission President & CEO Linda Keen, a surprisingly staunch advocate of strict, science-based licensing.

David Mosey commented days later in Nuclear Engineering International: "Keen responded with a spirited, and significantly more intelligently argued, justification for her commission’s position. But, with the inevitability of a clown stepping into a bucket of whitewash, the government removed Keen from her position on 15 January." (Feb., p 50)

Keen indignantly launched a judicial review of all aspects of her demotion at federal court. A decision is yet awaited, and might further spotlight the sorry sequence NRU-C-38-Keen condemnation.

Both AECL and Canada’s nuclear regulator have long answered to the same Minister.

New evidence in a report from Washington, DC-based Talisman International consultants recently pinpointed non-compliance at NRU.

NEI, the industry trade monthly, published extensive January-February crisis analysis by former Ontario Hydro nuclear engineer and safety communicator Mosey.

Unlike other reactors, explained Mosey, NRU requires special pumps, because its design geometry sometimes prevents gravity flow of critical fluids. (January NEI, p 6).

Mosey deplored Lunn’s demotion of Keen, as "a particularly scandalous point in the most lamentable fiasco in the history of the Canadian nuclear industry."

Mosey condemned AECL and MDS Nordion for failing "to have in place any contingency plans in case the supply from NRU was interrupted." Mosey ridiculed: "In an industry that’s constantly parading the ‘defence in depth’ approach to its operations, it seems rather odd that no-one could be bothered to apply their minds to the question of where they’d get their isotopes if NRU went on the blink." (February NEI, p 50)

NEI in July 2008, p 2 bemoaned AECL administration’s recent failure to mobilize two "already built" new Chalk River reactors, acronymed "Maple."

Canadian Press detailed further on July 28: "In May, AECL announced plans to scrap development of two Maple medical-isotope reactors after pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into the failed reactor projects."

Nonetheless, Canadian Press coverage of the Talisman report overlooked Talisman’s criticism of AECL license violations. In some 800 words, CP neglected to use either regulatory term "license" or "licensing."

The "Lessons Learned" report jointly for AECL and CNSC by a three-expert Talisman International team released by CNSC on July 28, was the next major industry source after NEI to publicize that AECL chronically violated its license for NRU.

Talisman noted AECL's poor connection of NRU pumps:

"In November 2007, CNSC staff brought to AECL’s attention a discrepancy between NRU documentation and the physical state of the plant. Specifically, two of the main heavy water pumps were not connected to the hazards qualified emergency power supply even though some AECL documents described the upgrades as fully operational."

Thus, Talisman unmistakably declared that CNSC staff warned AECL in November 2007 against their incomplete documentation of plant pumps. If the operator possessed technical manuals and specifications for its pumps then CNSC inspectors had not been receiving this documentation.

Pump inadequacy figured in the December parliamentary debate, during which AECL pled for more time under Bill C-38 to upgrade NRU pumps as required by CNSC.

Talisman contiued, "Further investigation led to the following:

Confirmation from AECL that the connection was not in place;

concerns from CNSC staff that operation without the connection was outside the licensing basis, and that the reactor should not operate in such a configuration without approval from the CNSC Commission;

an ensuing unplanned extended outage of NRU, leading to an interruption in the supply of medical isotopes, until the NRU reactor operation was authorized by an Act of the Canadian Parliament."

Privileged Talisman interviews and regulatory document access establish AECL awareness that they were operating NRU in violation of its license.

In summary, Talisman concluded from insider examination of abundant factual information that AECL failed to observe or move towards compliance with their license.

Talisman’s evidence supports Alghabra’s view - which I quoted April 11 in rabble.ca - that responsibility for nuclear regulation should be removed from the mandate of Canada’s Natural Resources Minister.

TALISMAN INTERNATIONAL: NUCLEAR INDUSTRY CONSULTANTS

Talisman International describes itself as a blend of regulatory & litigation consultants with IT security experts.

Two cowriters joined Talisman from the US nuclear navy. Lead author Hugh Thompson, Jr., a Georgia Tech nuclear engineer, served five years as a submariner in the nuclear navy.

Senior consultant Jon Johnson also holds a masters degree in nuclear engineering. Johnson officered in the nuclear navy for eight years.

Talisman’s third writer Robert Fairbank, Jr. was a US nuclear industry executive who specializes in investigations of what Talisman calls "high-profile issues with potentially very significant consequences."

Stephen Salaff is a Toronto-based freelance environment & public health writer and independent scholar. Salaff is currently contributing expose series to The ACTivist on command & control in both the nuclear industry and in Toronto Public Library shutdowns.