Don't privatize nuclear inspections, Pickering urges

Toronto Star - September 16, 2003
by Stan Josey - Durham Region Bureau Chief

The City of Pickering, fearing the nuclear equivalent of a tainted water or meat inspection scandal, is asking the province to cancel a plan to turn safety inspections of nuclear power facilities over to private concerns.

Mayor Wayne Arthurs said it is "critical" for the "ongoing safety" of residents near nuclear power plants that safety inspections remain in public hands.

"The implications of an accident at a nuclear facility make it even more important that safety inspections not be turned over to private, profit-making concerns," said Arthurs, who is continuing to serve as mayor while running for the Liberals in the Pickering-Ajax-Uxbridge riding now held by Finance Minister Janet Ecker.

At his urging, Pickering council gave unanimous approval last night to a motion asking the province and Ontario Power Generation to immediately cancel an agreement with a consortium led by Babcock & Wilcox Canada to assume safety inspections at Pickering and other Ontario nuclear generating plants.

Arthurs said the U.S. arm of Babcock & Wilcox, a worldwide energy service company, was singled out by a presidential commission on the 1979 nuclear plant accident at Three Mile Island, Pa., for providing inadequate training to plant operators.

He added that Queen's Park has a "poor record" on privatization of a wide range of provincial inspection services.

"We have only to look at the tainted water situation in Walkerton and the meat inspection fiasco at Aylmer Meat Packers to know that this latest move to privatize nuclear safety is wrong," Arthurs said.

Pickering Councillor David Ryan, who proposed the motion, said it was "absolutely wrong" to even consider turning the process over to "private American interests."

"The residents of ... Pickering and other municipalities that have nuclear generating stations need every assurance that the stations are being operated and maintained safely."

He said there is an "obvious conflict of interest" in the inspection process since Babcock & Wilcox also provides steam generators for Ontario's nuclear power plants.

The motion will be sent to the premier, the president of Ontario Power Generation, and Canadian nuclear safety officials.

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